^ 


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O 

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,  £3 

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i  high  excellence  of  their  contents  makes  them  desirable 
I  always  and  everywhere.     The  series  will  include  the 
choicest  productions  of  such  authors  as 

EMERSON,  LOWELL, 

LONGFELLOW,  HOLMES, 

WHITTIER,  HOWELLS, 

HAWTHORNE,  HARTE, 

ALDRICH,  THOREAU, 

and  others  of  like  fame. 

They  are  beautifully  printed,  and  bound  in  flexible 
cloth  covers,  at  a  uniform  price  of 

FIFTY  CENTS   EACH. 
The  first  issues  include  :  — 

Snow-Bound.      By   JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER. 
Illustrated. 

Evangeline.    By  HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 
Illustrated. 

!   Power,  "Wealth,  Illusions.     Essays  by  RALPH* 
WALDO  EMERSON. 

Culture,  Behavior,   Beauty.    Essays  by  RALPH 
WALDJ  EMERSON. 

The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.    By  HENRY 

WADSWORTH   LONGFELLOW.      Illustrated. 

!    Enoch  Arden.     By  ALFRED  TENNYSON.    Illustrated. 

Nathaniel   Hawthorne.    By  JAMES  T.   FIELDS. 
Illustrated 

;    A    Day's    Pleasure.     By  W.   D.  HOWELLS.     Illus 
trated. 

JAMES    R.  OSGOOD    &    CO., 

PUBLISHERS,  BOSTON. 


JAMES   T.   FIELDS. 


A  hundred  years  ago  Henry  Vaughan  seems  almost  to  have 
anticipated  Hawthorne's  appearance  when  he  wrote  that  beautiful 
line, 

"Feed  on  the  vocal  silence  of  his  eye." 


f  OF  THE 

|    UNIVERSITftlkirstrt. 

OF 


BOSTON: 

JAMES    R.   OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY, 

Late  Ticknor  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgood,  &  Co. 

1876. 


Copyright,  1871,  by 

JAMES  T.  FIELDS. 


University  Press :  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 
Cambridge. 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


HAWTHORNE. 


AM  sitting  to-day  opposite  the  likeness  of 
the  rarest  genius  America  has  given  to 
literature,  —  a  man  who  lately  sojourned 
in  this  busy  world  of  ours,  bnt  during  many  years 
of  his  life 

"  "Wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud,"  — 

a  man  who  had,  so  to  speak,  a  physical  affinity  with 
solitude.  The  writings  of  this  author  have  never 
soiled  the  public  mind  with  one  unlovely  image. 
His  men  and  women  have  a  magic  of  their  own, 
and  we  shall  wait  a  long  time  before  another  arises 
among  us  to  take  his  place.  Indeed,  it  seems  prob 
able  no  one  will  ever  walk  precisely  the  same  round 
of  fiction  which  he  traversed  with  so  free  and  firm 
a  step. 

The  portrait  I  am  looking  at  was  made  by  Rowse 
(an  exquisite  drawing),  and  is  a  very  truthful  rep 
resentation  of  the  head  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 


6  HAWTHOBNE. 

He  was  several  times  painted  and  photographed, 
but  it  was  impossible  for  art  to  give  the  light  and 
beauty  of  his  wonderful  eyes.  I  remember  to  have 
heard,  in  the  literary  circles  of  Great  Britain,  that, 
since  Burns,  no  author  had  appeared  there  with 
a  finer  face  than  Hawthorne's.  Old  Mrs.  Basil 
Montagu  told  me,  many  years  ago,  that  she  sat 
next  to  Burns  at  dinner,  when  he  appeared  in 
society  in  the  first  flush  of  his  fame,  after  the  Edin 
burgh  edition  of  his  poems  had  been  published. 
She  said,  among  other  things,  that,  although  the 
company  consisted  of  some  of  the  best  bred  men 
of  England,  Burns  seemed  to  her  the  most  perfect 
gentleman  among  them.  She  noticed,  particularly, 
his  genuine  grace  and  deferential  manner  toward 
women,  and  I  was  interested  to  hear  Mrs.  Mon 
tagu's  brilliant  daughter,  when  speaking  of  Haw 
thorne's  advent  in  English  society,  describe  him  in 
almost  the  same  terms  as  I  had  heard  her  mother, 
years  before,  describe  the  Scottish  poet.  I  hap 
pened  to  be  in  London  with  Hawthorne  during 
his  consular  residence  in  England,  and  was  always 
greatly  delighted  at  the  rustle  of  admiration  his 
personal  appearance  excited  when  he  entered  a 
room.  His  bearing  was  modestly  grand,  and  his 
voice  touched  the  ear  like  a  melody. 

Here  is  a  golden  curl  which  adorned  the  head  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  when  he  lay  a  little  child  in 
his  cradle.  It  was  given  to  me  many  years  ago  by 


HAWTHOUNE.  7 

one  near  and  dear  to  him.  I  have  two  other 
similar  "blossoms,"  which  I  keep  pressed  in  the 
same  book  of  remembrance.  One  is  from  the  head 
of  John  Keats,  and  was  given  to  me  by  Charles 
Cowden  Clarke,  and  the  other  graced  the  head  of 
Mary  Mitford,  and  was  sent  to  me  after  her  death 
by  her  friendly  physician,  who  watched  over  her 
last  hours.  Leigh  Hunt  says  with  a  fine  poetic 
emphasis, 

"There  seems  a  love  iu  hair,  though  it  be  dead. 
It  is  the  gentlest,  yet  the  strongest  thread 
Of  our  frail  plant,  —  a  blossom  from  the  tree 
Surviving  the  proud  trunk ;  —  as  though  it  said, 
Patience  and  Gentleness  is  Power.     In  me 
Behold  affectionate  eternity." 

There  is  a  charming  old  lady,  now  living  two 
doors  from  me,  who  dwelt  in  Salem  when  Haw 
thorne  was  born,  and,  being  his  mother's  neighbor 
at  that  time  (Mrs.  Hawthorne  then  lived  in  Union 
Street),  there  came  a  message  to  her  intimating 
that  the  baby  could  be  seen  by  calling.  So  my 
friend  tells  me  she  went  in,  and  saw  the  little 
winking  thing  in  its  mother's  arms.  She  is  very 
clear  as  to  the  beauty  of  the  infant,  even  when  only 
a  week* old,  and  remembers  that  "he  was  a  pleasant 
child,  quite  handsome,  with  golden  curls."  She 
also  tells  me  that  Hawthorne's  mother  was  a  beau 
tiful  woman,  with  remarkable  eyes,  full  of  sensibil 
ity  and  expression,  and  that  she  was  a  person  of 


8  HAWTHORNE. 

singular  purity  of  mind.  Hawthorne's  father, 
whom  my  friend  knew  well,  she  describes  as  a 
warm-hearted  and  kindly  man,  very  fond  of  chil 
dren.  He  was  somewhat  inclined  to  melancholy, 
and  of  a  reticent  disposition.  He  was  a  great 
reader,  employing  all  his  leisure  time  at  sea  over 
books. 

Hawthorne's  father  died  when  Nathaniel  was 
four  years  old,  and  from  that  time  his  uncle  Rob 
ert  Manning  took  charge  of  his  education,  sending 
him  to  the  best  schools  and  afterwards  to  college. 
When  the  lad  was  about  nine  years  old,  while  play 
ing  bat  and  ball  at  school,  he  lamed  his  foot  so 
badly  that  he  used  two  crutches  for  more  than  a 
year.  His  foot  ceased  to  grow  like  the  other,  and 
the  doctors  of  the  town  were  called  in  to  examine 
the  little  lame  boy.  He  was  not  perfectly  restored 
till  he  was  twelve  years  old.  His  kind-hearted 
schoolmaster,  Joseph  Worcester,  the  author  of  the 
Dictionary,  came  every  day  to  the  house  to  hear 
the  boy's  lessons,  so  that  he  did  not  fall  behind  in 
his  studies.  [There  is  a  tradition  in  the  Manning 
family  that  Mr.  Worcester  was  very  much  inter 
ested  in  Maria  Manning  (a  sister  of  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne),  who  died  -in  1814,  and  that  this  was  tone 
reason  of  his  attention  to  Nathaniel.]  The  boy  used 
to  lie  flat  upon  the  carpet,  and  read  and  study  the 
long  days  through.  Some  time  after  he  had  re 
covered  from  this  lameness  he  had  an  illness  caus- 


HAWTHORNE.  9 

ing  him  to  lose  the  use  of  his  limbs,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  seek  again  the  aid  of  his  old  crutches, 
which  were  then  pieced  out  at  the  ends  to  make 
them  longer.  While  a  little  child,  and  as  soon 
almost  as  he  began  to  read,  the  authors  he  most 
delighted  in  were  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Pope,  arid 
Thomson.  The  "  Castle  of  Indolence  "  was  an 
especial  favorite  with  him  during  boyhood.  The 
first  book  he  bought  with  his  own  money  was  a 
copy  of  Spenser's  "  Faery  Queen." 

One  who  watched  him  during  his  childhood  tells 
me,  that  "  when  he  was  six  years  old  his  favorite 
book  was  Banyan's  '  Pilgrim's  Progress  ' :  and  that 
whenever  he  went  to  visit  his  Grandmother  Haw 
thorne,  he  used  to  take  the  old  family  copy  to  a 
large  chair  in  a  corner  of  the  room  near  a  window, 
and  read  it  by  the  hour,  without  once  speaking. 
No  one  ever  thought  of  asking  how  much  of  it  he 
understood.  I  think  it  one  of  the  happiest  cir 
cumstances  of  his  training,  that  nothing  was  ever 
explained  to  him,  and  that  there  was  no  profess 
edly  intellectual  person  in  the  family  to  usurp  the 
place  of  Providence  and  supplement  its  shortcom 
ings,  in  order  to  make  him  what  he  was  never 
intended  to  be.  His  mind  developed  itself ;  inten 
tional  cultivation  might  have  spoiled  it He 

used  to  invent  long  stories,  wild  and  fanciful,  and 
tell  where  he  was  going  when  he  grew  up,  and  of 
the  wonderful  adventures  he  was  to  meet  with, 


10  HAWTHORNE. 

always  ending  with,  '  And  I  'm  never  coming  back 
again/  in  quite  a  solemn  tone,  that  enjoined  upon  us 
the  advice  to  value  him  the  more  while  he  stayed 
with  us.'' 

When  he  could  scarcely  speak  plain,  it  is  recalled 
by  members  of  the  family  that  the  little  fellow 
would  go  about  the  house,  repeating  with  vehement 
emphasis  and  gestures  certain  stagy  lines  from 
Shakespeare's  Richard  III.,  which  he  had  over 
heard  from  older  persons  about  him.  One  line,  in 
particular,  made  a  great  impression  upon  him,  and 
he  would  start  up  on  the  most  unexpected  occasions 
and  lire  off  in  his  loudest  tone, 

"  Stand  back,  my  Lord,  and  let  the  coffin  pass." 

On  the  21st  of  August,  1820,  No.  1  of  "The 
Spectator,  edited  by  N.  Hathorne,"  neatly  written 
in  printed  letters  by  the  editor's  own  hand,  ap 
peared.  A  prospectus  was  issued  the  week  before, 
setting  forth  that  the  paper  would  be  published  on 
Wednesdays,  "price  12  cents  per  annum,  payment 
to  be  made  at  the  end  of  the  year."  Among  the 
advertisements  is  the  following  :  — 

"  Nathaniel  Hathorne  proposes  to  publish  by  subscription 
fc  NEW  EDITION  of  the  MISERIES  OF  AUTHORS,  to  which 
will  be  added  a  SEQUEL,  containing  FACTS  and  REMARKS 
drawn  from  his  own  experience." 

Six  numbers  only  were  published.  The  following 
subjects  were  discussed  by  young  "  Hathorne  "  in 
the  Spectator,  —  "  On  Solitude,"  "  The  End  of  the 


HAWTHORNE.  11 

Year/'  "  On  Industry,"  "  On  Benevolence/'  "  On 
Autumn/'  "  On  Wealth/'  "  On  Hope/'  "  On  Cour 
age."  The  poetry  on  the  last  page  of  each  number 
was  evidently  written  by  the  editor,  except  in  one 
instance,  when  an  Address  to  the  Sun  is  signed  by 
one  of  his  sisters.  In  one  of  the  numbers  he  apolo 
gizes  that  no  deaths  of  any  importance  have  taken 
place  in  the  town.  Under  the  head  of  Births,  he 
gives  the  following  news,  "  The  lady  of  Dr.  Win- 
throp  Brown,  a  son  and  heir.  Mrs.  Hathorne's 
cat,  seven  kittens.  We  hear  that  both  of  the  above 
ladies  are  in  a  state  of  convalescence."  One  of  the 
literary  advertisements  reads  :  — 

"Blank  Books  made  and  for  sale  by  N.  Hathorne." 

While  Hawthorne  was  yet  a  little  fellow  the  fam 
ily  moved  to  Raymond  in  the  State  of  Maine ;  here 
his  out-of-door  life  did  him  great  service,  for  he 
grew  tall  and  strong,  and  became  a  good  shot  and 
an  excellent  fisherman.  Here  also  his  imagination 
was  first  stimulated,  the  wild  scenery  and  the  prim 
itive  manners  of  the  people  contributing  greatly 
to  awaken  his  thought.  At  seventeen  he  entered 
Bowdoin  College,  and  after  his  graduation  returned 
again  to  live  in  Salem.  During  his  youth  he  had 
an  impression  that  he  would  die  before  the  age  of 
twenty-five;  but  the  Mannings,  his  ever-watchful 
and  kind  relations,  did  everything  possible  for  the 
care  of  his  health,  and  he  was  tided  safely  over  the 


12  HAWTHOHNE. 

period  when  lie  was  most  delicate.  Professor  Pack 
ard  told  me  that  when  Hawthorne  was  a  student  at 
Bowdoin  in  his  freshman  year,  his  Latin  composi 
tions  showed  such  facility  that  they  attracted  the 
special  attention  of  those  who  examined  them.  The 
Professor  also  remembers  that  Hawthorne's  English 
compositions  elicited  from  Professor  Newman  (au 
thor  of  the  work  on  Rhetoric)  high  commendations. 

When  a  youth  Hawthorne  made  a  journey  into 
New  Hampshire  with  his  uncle,  Samuel  Manning. 
They  travelled  in  a  two-wheeled  chaise,  and  met  with 
many  adventures  which  the  young  man  chronicled 
in  his  home  letters.  Some  of  the  touches  in  these 
epistles  were  very  characteristic  and  amusing,  and 
showed  in  those  early  years  his  quick  observation 
and  descriptive  power.  The  travellers  "  put  up  "  at 
Farmingtou,  in  order  to  rest  over  Sunday.  Haw 
thorne  writes  to  a  member  of  the  family  in  Salem : 
"As  we  were  wearied  with  rapid  travelling,  we  found 
it  impossible  to  attend  divine  service,  which  was, 
of  course,  very  grievous  to  us  both.  In  the  even 
ing,  however,  I  went  to  a  Bible  class,  with  a  very 
polite  and  agreeable  gentleman,  whom  I  afterwards 
discovered  to  be  a  strolling  tailor,  of  very  question 
able  habits." 

When  the  travellers  arrived  in  the  Shaker  village 
of  Canterbury,  Hawthorne  at  once  made  the  ac 
quaintance  of  the  Community  there,  and  the  account 
which  he  sent  home  was  to  the  effect  that  the  broth- 


HAWTHOENE.  13 

ers  and  sisters  led  a  good  and  comfortable  life,  and 
he  wrote  :  "  If  it  were  not  for  the  ridiculous  cere 
monies,  a  man  might  do  a  worse  thing  than  to  join 
them."  Indeed,  he  spoke  to  them  about  becoming 
a  member  of  the  Society,  and  was  evidently  much 
impressed  with  the  thrift  and  peace  of  the  establish 
ment. 

This  visit  in  early  life  to  the  Shakers  is  interest-' 
ing  as  suggesting  to  Hawthorne  his  beautiful  story 
of  "  The  Canterbury  Pilgrims,"  which  is  in  his  vol 
ume  of  "  The  Snow-Image,  and  other  Twice-Told 
Tales." 

A  lady  of  my  acquaintance  (the  identical  "  Little 
Annie  "  of  the  "  Ramble  "  in  "  Twice-Told  Tales  ") 
recalls  the  young  man  "  when  he  returned  home 
after  his  collegiate  studies."  "  He  was  even  then," 
she  says,  "  a  most  noticeable  person,  never  going 
into  society,  and  deeply  engaged  in  reading  every 
thing  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  It  was  said  in 
those  days  that  he  had  read  every  book  in  the  Athe 
naeum  Library  in  Salem."  This  lady  remembers 
that  when  she  was  a  child,  and  before  Hawthorne 
had  printed  any  of  his  stories,  she  used  to  sit  on  his 
knee  and  lean  her  head  on  his  shoulder,  while  by 
the  hour  he  would  fascinate  her  with  delightful 
legends,  much  more  wonderful  and  beautiful  than 
any  she  has  ever  read  since  in  printed  books. 

The  traits  of  the  Hawthorne  character  were  stern 
probity  and  truthfulness.  Hawthorne's  mother  had 


14  HAWTHOENE. 

many  characteristics  in  common  with  her  distin 
guished  son,  she  also  being  a  reserved  and  thought 
ful  person.  Those  who  knew  the  family  describe 
the  son's  affection  for  her  as  of  the  deepest  and  ten- 
derest  nature,  and  they  remember  that  when  she 
died  his  grief  was  almost  insupportable.  The  an 
guish  he  suffered  from  her  loss  is  distinctly  recalled 
by  many  persons  still  living,  who  visited  the  family 
at  that  time  in  Salem. 

I  first  saw  Hawthorne  when  he  was  about  thirty- 
five  years  old.  He  had  then  published  a  collection 
of  his  sketches,  the  now  famous  "  Twice-Told 
Tales."  Longfellow,  ever  alert  for  what  is  excel 
lent,  and  eager  to  do  a  brother  author  opportune 
and  substantial  service,  at  once  came  before  the 
public  with  a  generous  estimate  of  the  work  in  the 
North  American  Review ;  but  the  choice  little  vol 
ume,  the  most  promising  addition  to  American 
literature  that  had  appeared  for  many  years,  made 
little  impression  on  the  public  mind.  Discerning 
readers,  however,  recognized  the  supreme  beauty  in 
this  new  writer,  and  they  never  afterwards  lost  sight 
of  him. 

In  1828  Hawthorne  published  a  short  anonymous 
romance  called  Fanshawe.  I  once  asked  him  about 
this  disowned  publication,  and  he  spoke  of  it  with 
great  disgust,  and  afterwards  he  thus  referred  to  the 
subject  in  a  letter  written  to  me  in  1851:  "You 


HAWTHORNE.  15 

make  an  inquiry  about  some  supposed  former  publi 
cation  of  mine.  I  cannot  be  sworn  to  make  correct 
answers  as  to  all  the  literary  or  other  follies  of  my 
nonage ;  and  I  earnestly  recommend  you  not  to 
brush  away  the  dust  that  may  have  gathered  over 
them.  Whatever  might  do  me  credit  you  may  be 
pretty  sure  I  should  be  ready  enough  to  bring  for 
ward.  Anything  else  it  is  our  mutual  interest  to 
conceal ;  and  so  far  from  assisting  your  researches 
in  that  direction,  I  especially  enjoin  it  on  you,  my 
dear  friend,  not  to  read  any  unacknowledged  page 
that  you  may  suppose  to  be  mine." 

When  Mr.  George  Bancroft,  then  Collector  of  the 
Port  of  Boston,  appointed  Hawthorne  weigher  and 
gauger  in  the  custom-house,  he  did  a  wise  thing, 
for  no  public  officer  ever  performed  his  disagreeable 
duties  better  than  our  romancer.  Here  is  a  tattered 
little  official  document  signed  by  Hawthorne  when 
he  was  watching  over  the  interests  of  the  country  : 
it  certifies  his  attendance  at  the  unlading  of  a  brig, 
then  lying  at  Long  Wharf  in  Boston.  I  keep  this 
precious  relic  side  by  side  with  one  of  a  similar 
custom-house  character  signed  Robert  Burns. 

I  came  to  know  Hawthorne  very  intimately  after 
the  Whigs  displaced  the  Democratic  romancer  from 
office.  In  my  ardent  desire  to  have  him  retained 
in  the  public  service,  his  salary  at  that  time  being 
his  sole  dependence, —  not  foreseeing  that  his  with 
drawal  from  that  sort  of  employment  would  be  the 


16  HAWTHOENE. 

best  thing  for  American  letters  that  could  possibly 
happen, —  I  called,  in  his  behalf,  on  several  influen 
tial  politicians  of  the  day,  and  well  remember  the 
rebuffs  I  received  in  my  enthusiasm  for  the  author 
of  the  "Twice-Told  Tales."  One  pompous  little 
gentleman  in  authority,  after  hearing  my  appeal, 
quite  astounded  me  by  his  ignorance  of  the  claims 
of  a  literary  man  on  his  country.  "  Yes,  yes,"  he 
sarcastically  croaked  down  his  public  turtle -fed 
throat,  "I  see  through  it  all,  I  see  through  it ; 
this  Hawthorne  is  one  of  them  'ere  visionists,  and 
we  don't  want  no  such  a  man  as  him  round."  So 
the  "  visionist  "  was  not  allowed  to  remain  in  office, 
and  the  country  was  better  served  by  him  in  another 
way.  In  the  winter  of  1849,  after  he  had  been 
ejected  from  the  custom-house,  I  went  down  to 
Salem  to  see  him  and  inquire  after  his  health,  for 
we  heard  he  had  been  suffering  from  illness.  He 
was  then  living  in  a  modest  wooden  house  in  Mall 
Street,  if  I  remember  rightly  the  location.  I  found 
him  alone  in  a  chamber  over  the  sitting-room  of  the 
dwelling ;  and  as  the  day  was  cold,  he  was  hovering 
near  a  stove.  We  fell  into  talk  about  his  future 
prospects,  and  he  was,  as  I  feared  I  should  find 
him,  in  a  very  desponding  mood.  "  Now,"  said  I, 
"  is  the  time  for  you  to  publish,  for  I  know  during 
these  years  in  Salem  you  must  have  got  something 
ready  for  the  press."  "  Nonsense,"  said  he  ;  "what 
heart  had  I  to  write  anything,  when  my  publishers 


HAWTHOENE.  19 

(M.  and  Company)  have  been  so  many  years  trying 
to  sell  a  small  edition  of  the  'Twice-Told  Tales '?" 
I  still  pressed  upon  him  the  good  chances  he  would 
have  now  with  something  new.  "  Who  would  risk 
publishing  a  book  for  me,  the  most  unpopular  writer 
in  America?"  "I  would,"  said  I,  "and  would 
start  with  an  edition  of  two  thousand  copies  of 
anything  you  write."  "  What  madness  !  "  he  ex 
claimed  ;  "  your  friendship  for  me  gets  the  better 
of  your  judgment.  No,  no,"  he  continued;  "I 
have  no  money  to  indemnify  a  publisher's  losses  on 
my  account."  I  looked  at  my  watch  'and  found 
that  the  train  would  soon  be  starting  for  Boston, 
and  I  knew  there  was  not  much  time  to  lose  in 
trying  to  discover  what  had  been  his  literary  work 
during  these  last  few  years  in  Salem.  I  remember 
that  I  pressed  him  to  reveal  to  me  what  he  had 
been  writing.  He  shook  his  head  and  gave  me  to 
understand  he  had  produced  nothing.  At  that  mo 
ment  I  caught  sight  of  a  bureau  or  set  of  drawers 
near  where  we  were  sitting;  and  immediately  it 
occurred  to  me  that  hidden  away  somewhere  in  that 
article  of  furniture  was  a  story  or  stories  by  the 
author  of  the  "  Twice-Told  Tales,"  and  I  became 
so  positive  of  it  that  I  charged  him  vehemently 
with  the  fact.  He  seemed  surprised,  I  thought, 
but  shook  his  head  again ;  and  I  rose  to  take  my 
leave,  begging  him  not  to  come  into  the  cold  entry, 
saying  I  would  come  back  and  see  him  again  in  a 


20  HAWTHORNE. 

few  days.  I  was  hurrying  down  the  stairs  when 
he  called  after  me  from  the  chamber,  asking  me  to 
stop  a  moment.  Then  quickly  stepping  into  the 
entry  with  a  roll  of  manuscript  in  his  hands,  he  said  : 
"  How  in  Heaven's  name  did  you  know  this  thing 
was  there  ?  As  you  have  found  me  out,  take  what 
I  have  written,  and  tell  me,  after  you  get  home  and 
have  time  to  read  it,  if  it  is  good  for  anything.  It 
is  either  very  good  or  very  bad,  —  I  don't  know 
which."  On  my  way  up  to  Boston  I  read  the  germ 
of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  ;  before  I  slept  that  night 
I  wrote  him  a  note  all  aglow  with  admiration  of  the 
marvellous  story  he  had  put  into  my  hands,  and 
told  him  that  I  would  come  again  to  Salem  the  next 
day  and  arrange  for  its  publication.  I  went  on  in 
such  an  amazing  state  of  excitement  when  we  met 
again  in  the  little  house,  that  he  would  not  believe 
I  was  really  in  earnest.  He  seemed  to  think  I  was 
beside  myself,  and  laughed  sadly  at  my  enthusiasm. 
However,  we  soon  arranged  for  his  appearance  again 
before  the  public  with  a  book. 

This  quarto  volume  before  me  contains  numerous 
letters,  written  by  him  from  1850  down  to  the  month 
of  his  death.  The  first  one  refers  to  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter,"  and  is  dated  in  January,  1850.  At  my 
suggestion  he  had  altered  the  plan  of  that  story.  It 
was  his  intention  to  make  "  The  Scarlet  Letter " 
one  of  several  short  stories,  all  to  be  included  in  one 
volume,  and  to  be  called 


HAWTHORNE.  21 

OLD-TIME    LEGENDS: 

TOGETHER  WITH    SKETCHES, 

EXPERIMENTAL    AND    IDEAL. 

His  first  design  was  to  make  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  " 
occupy  about  two  hundred  pages  in  his  new  book  ; 
but  I  persuaded  him,  after  reading  the  first  chapters 
of  the  story,  to  elaborate  it,  and  publish  it  as  a  sep 
arate  work.  After  it  was  settled  that  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter  "  should  be  enlarged  and  printed  by  itself  in 
a  volume  he  wrote  to  me  :  — 

"  I  am  truly  glad  that  you  like  the  Introduction,  for  I  was 
rather  afraid  that  it  might  appear  absurd  and  impertinent  to 
be  talking  about  myself,  when  nobody,  that  I  know  of,  has 
requested  any  information  on  that  subject. 

"  As  regards  the  size  of  the  book,  I  have  been  thinking  a 
good  deal  about  it.  Considered  merely  as  a  matter  of  taste 
and  beauty,  the  form  of  publication  which  you  recommend 
seems  to  me  much  preferable  to  that  of  the  '  Mosses.' 

"  In  the  present  case,  however,  I  have  some  doubts  of  the 
expediency,  because,  if  the  book  is  made  up  entirely  of  '  The 
Scarlet  Letter,'  it  will  be  too  sombre.  I  found  it  impossible 
to  relieve  the  shadows  of  the  story  with  so  much  light  as  I 
would  gladly  have  thrown  in.  Keeping  so  close  to  its  point 
as  the  tale  does,  and  diversified  no  otherwise  than  by  turn 
ing  different  sides  of  the  same  dark  idea  to  the  reader's  eye, 
it  will  weary  very  many  people  and  disgust  some.  Is  it 
safe,  then,  to  stake  the  fate  of  the  book  entirely  on  this  one 
chance?  A  hunter  loads  his  gun  with  a  bullet  and  several 
buckshot ;  and,  following  his  sagacious  example,  it  was  my 
purpose  to  conjoin  the  one  long  story  with  half  a  dozen 
shorter  ones,  so  that,  failing  to  kill  the  public  outright  with 
my  biggest  and  heaviest  lump  of  lead,  I  might  have  other 


22  HAWTHORNE. 

chances  with  the  smaller  bits,  individually  and  in  the  aggre 
gate.  However,  I  am  willing  to  leave  these  considerations 
to  your  judgment,  and  should  not  be  sorry  to  have  you  de 
cide  for  the  separate  publication. 

"  In  this  latter  event  it  appears  to  me  that  the  only  proper 
title  for  the  book  would  be  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  for  '  The 
Custom-House '  is  merely  introductory,  —  an  entrance-hall 
to  the  magnificent  edifice  which  I  throw  open  to  my  guests. 
It  would  be  funny  if,  seeing  the  further  passages  so  dark 
and  dismal,  they  should  all  choose  to  stop  there  !  If  '  The 
Scarlet  Letter '  is  to  be  the  title,  would  it  not  be  well  to 
print  it  on  the  title-page  in  red  ink  ?  I  am  not  quite  sure 
about  the  good  taste  of  so  doing,  but  it  would  certainly  be 
piquant  and  appropriate,  and,  I  think,  attractive  to  the  great 
gull  whom  we  are  endeavoring  to  circumvent." 

One  beautiful  summer  day,  twenty  years  ago,  I 
found  Hawthorne  in  his  little  red  cottage  at  Lenox, 
surrounded  by  his  happy  young  family.  He  had 
the  look,  as  somebody  said,  of  a  banished  lord,  and 
his  grand  figure  among  the  hills  of  Berkshire  seemed 
finer  than  ever.  His  boy  and  girl  were  swinging 
on  the  gate  as  we  drove  up  to  his  door,  and  with 
their  sunny  curls  formed  an  attractive  feature  in 
the  landscape.  As  the  afternoon  was  cool  and  de 
lightful,  we  proposed  a  drive  over  to  Pittsfield  to 
see  Holmes,  who  was  then  living  on  his  ancestral 
farm.  Hawthorne  was  in  a  cheerful  condition,  and 
seemed  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  the  day  to  the  utmost. 
Next  morning  we  were  all  invited  by  Mr.  Dudley 
Field,  then  living  at  Stockbridge,  to  ascend  Monu 
ment  Mountain.  Holmes,  Hawthorne,  Duyckinck, 
Herman  Melville,  Headley,  Sedgwick,  Matthews, 


HAWTHORNE.  23 

and  several  ladies  were  of  the  party.  We  scram 
bled  to  the  top  with  great  spirit,  and  when  we 
arrived,  Melville,  I  remember,  bestrode  a  peaked 
rock,  which  ran  out  like  a  bowsprit,  and  pulled  and 
hauled  imaginary  ropes  for  our  delectation.  Then 
we  all  assembled  in  a  shady  spot,  and  one  of  the 
party  read  to  us  Bryant's  beautiful  poem  commem 
orating  Monument  Mountain.  Then  we  lunched 
among  the  rocks,  and  somebody  proposed  Bryant's 
health,  and  "long  life  to  the  dear  old  poet."  This 
was  the  most  popular  toast  of  the  day,  and  it  took, 
I  remember,  a  considerable  quantity  of  Heidsieck 
to  do  it  justice.  In  the  afternoon,  pioneered  by 
Headley,  we  made  our  way,  with  merry  shouts  and 
laughter,  through  the  Ice- Glen.  Hawthorne  was 
among  the  most  enterprising  of  the  merrymakers ; 
and  being  in  the  dark  much  of  the  time,  he  ven 
tured  to  call  out  lustily  and  pretend  that  certain 
destruction  was  inevitable  to  all  of  us.  After  this 
extemporaneous  jollity,  we  dined  together  at  Mr. 
Dudley  Field's  in  Stockbridge,  and  Hawthorne 
rayed  out  in  a  sparkling  and  unwonted  manner.  I 
remember  the  conversation  at  table  chiefly  ran  on 
the  physical  differences  between  the  present  Ameri 
can  and  English  men,  Hawthorne  stoutly  taking 
part  in  favor  of  the  American.  This  5th  of  August 
was  a  happy  day  throughout,  and  I  never  saw 
Hawthorne  in  better  spirits. 

Often  and  often  I  have  seen  him  sitting  in  the 


HAWTHORNE. 

chair  I  am  now  occupying  by  the  window,  looking 
out  into  the  twilight.  He  liked  to  watch  the  ves 
sels  dropping  down  the  stream,  and  nothing  pleased 
him  more  than  to  go  on  board  a  newly  arrived  bark 
from  Down  East,  as  she  was  just  moored  at  the 
wharf.  One  night  we  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
cabin-boy  on  board  a  brig,  whom  we  found  off  duty 
and  reading  a  large  subscription  volume,  which 
proved,  on  inquiry,  to  be  a  Commentary  on  the 
Bible.  When  Hawthorne  questioned  him  why  he 
was  reading,  then  and  there,  that  particular  book, 
he  replied  with  a  knowing  wink  at  both  of  us, 
"  There  's  consider'ble  her'sy  in  our  place,  and  I  'm 
a  studying  up  for  'em." 

He  liked  on  Sunday  to  mouse  about  among  the 
books,  and  there  are  few  volumes  in  this  room  that 
he  has  not  handled  or  read.  He  knew  he  could 
have  unmolested  habitation  here,  whenever  he  chose 
to  come,  and  he  was  never  allowed  to  be  annoyed 
by  intrusion  of  any  kind.  He  always  slept  in  the 
same  room,  —  the  one  looking  on  the  water  ;  and 
many  a  night  I  have  heard  his  solemn  footsteps 
over  my  head,  long  after  the  rest  of  the  house  had 
gone  to  sleep.  Like  many  other  nervous  men  of 
genius,  he  was  a  light  sleeper,  and  he  liked  to  be 
up  and  about  early ;  but  it  was  only  for  a  ramble 
among  the  books  again.  One  summer  morning  I 
found  him  as  early  as  four  o'clock  reading  a  favor 
ite  poem,  on  Solitude,  a  piece  he  very  much  ad- 


3MA^ 

OF  THE 

>NIVERSITY 

OF 


HAWTHORNE.  S  7 

mired.  That  morning  I  shall  not  soon  forget,  for 
he  was  in  the  vein  for  autobiographical  talk,  and 
he  gave  me  a  most  interesting  account  of  his  father, 
the  sea-captain,  who  died  of  the  yellow-fever  in 
Surinam  in  1808,  and  of  his  beautiful  mother,  who 
dwelt  a  secluded  mourner  ever  after  the  death  of 
her  husband.  Then  he  told  stories  of  his  college 
life,  and  of  his  one  sole  intimate,  Franklin  Pierce, 
whom  he  loved  devotedly  his  life  long. 

In  the  early  period  of  our  acquaintance  he  much 
aifected  the  old  Boston  Exchange  Coffee-House  in 
Devonshire  Street,  and  once  I  remember  to  have 
found  him  shut  up  there  before  a  blazing  coal-fire, 
in  the  "  tumultuous  privacy  "  of  a  great  snow-storm, 
reading  with  apparent  interest  an  obsolete  copy  of 
the  "  Old  Farmer's  Almanac,"  which  he  had  picked 
up  about  the  house.  He  also  delighted  in  the  Old 
Province  House,  at  that  time  an  inn,  kept  by  one 
Thomas  "Waite,  whom  he  has  immortalized.  After 
he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Saturday  Club  he 
came  frequently  to  dinner  with  Felton,  Longfellow, 
Holmes,  and  the  rest  of  his  friends,  who  assembled 
once  a  month  to  dine  together.  At  the  table,  on 
these  occasions,  he  was  rather  reticent  than  con 
versational,  but  when  he  chose  to  talk  it  was  ob 
served  that  the  best  things  said  that  day  came  from 
him. 

As  I  turn  over  his  letters,  the  old  days,  delight 
ful  to  recall,  come  back  again  with  added  interest. 


28  HAWTHORNE. 

"  I  sha'  n't  have  the  new  story,"  he  says  in  one  of  them, 
dated  from  Lenox  on  the  1st  of  October,  1850,  "  ready  by 
November,  for  I  am  never  good  for  anything  in  the  literary 
way  till  after  the  first  autumnal  frost,  which  has  somewhat 
such  an  effect  on  my  imagination  that  it  does  on  the  foliage 
here  about  me,  —  multiplying  and  brightening  its  hues  : 
though  they  are  likely  to  be  sober  and  shabby  enough 
after  all. 

"  I  am  beginning  to  puzzle  myself  about  a  title  for  the 
book.  The  scene  of  it  is  in  one  of  those  old  projecting- 
storied  houses,  familiar  to  my  eye  in  Salem ;  and  the  story, 
horrible  to  say,  is  a  little  less  than  two  hundred  years  long ; 
though  all  but  thirty  or  forty  pages  of  it  refer  to  the  present 
time.  I  think  of  such  titles  as  '  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,'  there  being  that  number  of  gable-ends  to  the  old 
shanty;  or, 'The  Seven-Gabled  House';  or  simply,  'The 
Seven  Gables.'  Tell  me  how  these  strike  you.  It  appears 
to  me  that  the  latter  is  rather  the  best,  and  has  the  great  ad 
vantage  that  it  would  puzzle  the  Devil  to  tell  what  it  means." 

A  month  afterwards  lie  writes  further  with  regard 
to  "  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  concerning 
the  title  to  which  he  was  still  in  a  quandary :  — 

'"The  Old  Pyncheou  House:  A  Romance';  'The  Old 
Pyncheon  Family ;  or,  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables :  A 
Romance ' ;  —  choose  between  them.  I  have  rather  a  dis 
taste  to  a  double  title ;  otherwise,  I  think  I  should  prefer 
the  second.  Is  it  any  matter  under  which  title  it  is  an 
nounced  ?  If  a  better  should  occur  hereafter,  we  can  sub 
stitute.  Of  these  two,  on  the  whole,  I  judge  the  first  to  be 
the  better. 

"  I  write  diligently,  but  not  so  rapidly  as  I  had  hoped.  I 
find  the  book  requires  more  care  and  thought  than  '  The 
Scarlet  Letter ' ;  also  I  have  to  wait  oftener  for  a  mood. 
'  The  Scarlet  Letter '  being  all  in  one  tone,  I  had  only  to  get 
my  pitch,  and  could  then  go  on  interminably.  Many  pas- 


HAWTHORNE.  29 

sages  of  this  book  ought  to  be  finished  with  the  minuteness 
of  a  Dutch  picture,  in  order  to  give  them  their  proper  effect. 
Sometimes,  when  tired  of  it,  it  strikes  me  that  the  whole  is 
an  absurdity,  from  beginning  to  end ;  but  the  fact  is,  in 
writing  a  romance,  a  man  is  always,  or  always  ought  to  be, 
careering  on  the  utmost  verge  of  a  precipitous  absurdity, 
and  the  skill  lies  in  coming  as  close  as  possible,  without  ac 
tually  tumbling  over.  My  prevailing  idea  is,  that  the  book 
ought  to  succeed  better  than  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  though  I 
have  no  idea  that  it  will." 

On  the  9th.  of  December  he  was  still  at  work  on 
the  new  romance,  and  writes  :  — 

"  My  desire  and  prayer  is  to  get  through  with  the  busi 
ness  in  hand.  I  have  been  in  a  Slough  of  Despond  for  some 
days  past,  having  written  so  fiercely  that  I  came  to  a  stand 
still.  There  are  points  where  a  writer  gets  bewildered  and 
cannot  form  any  judgment  of  what  he  has  done,  or  tell  what 
to  do  next.  In  these  cases  it  is  best  to  keep  quiet." 

On  the  12th  of  January,  1851,  he  is  still  busy 
over  his  new  book,  and  writes  :  "  My  '  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables  '  is,  so  to  speak,  finished ;  only  I 
am  hammering  away  a  little  on  the  roof,  and  doing 
up  a  few  odd  jobs,  that  were  left  incomplete."  At 
the  end  of  the  month  the  manuscript  of  his  second 
great  romance  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the  ex 
pressman  at  Lenox,  by  Hawthorne  himself,  to  be 
delivered  to  me.  On  the  2?th  he  writes  :  — 

"  If  you  do  not  soon  receive  it,  you  may  conclude  that  it 
has  miscarried;  in  which  case,  I  shall  not  consent  to  the 
universe  existing  a  moment  longer.  I  have  no  copy  of  it, 
except  the  wildest  scribble  of  a  first  draught,  so  that  it  could 
never  be  restored. 


30  HAWTHORNE. 

"  It  has  met  with  extraordinary  success  from  that  portion 
of  the  public  to  whose  judgment  it  has  been  submitted,  viz. 
from  my  wife.  I  likewise  prefer  it  to  '  The  Scarlet  Letter ' ; 
but  an  author's  opinion  of  his  book  just  after  completing  it 
is  worth  little  or  nothing,  he  being  then  in  the  hot  or  cold 
fit  of  a  fever,  and  certain  to  rate  it  too  high  or  too  low. 

"  It  has  undoubtedly  one  disadvantage  in  being  brought 
so  close  to  the  present  time ;  whereby  its  romantic  improba 
bilities  become  more  glaring. 

"  I  deem  it  indispensable  that  the  proof-sheets  should  be 
sent  me  for  correction.  It  will  cause  some  delay,  no  doubt, 
but  probably  not  much  more  than  if  I  lived  in  Salem.  At 
all  events,  I  don't  see  how  it  can  be  helped.  My  autography 
is  sometimes  villanously  blind ;  and  it  is  odd  enough  that 
whenever  the  printers  do  mistake  a  word,  it  is  just  the  very 
jewel  of  a  word,  worth  all  the  rest  of  the  dictionary." 

I  well  remember  with  what  anxiety  I  awaited 
the  arrival  of  the  expressman  with  the  precious 
parcel,  and  with  what  keen  delight  I  read  every 
word  of  the  new  story  before  I  slept.  Here  is 
the  original  manuscript,  just  as  it  came  that  day, 
twenty  years  ago,  fresh  from  the  author's  hand. 
The  printers  carefully  preserved  it  for  me  ;  and 
Hawthorne  once  made  a  formal  presentation  of  it, 
with  great  mock  solemnity,  in  this  very  room  where 
I  am  nowr  sitting. 

After  the  book  came  out  he  wrote :  — 

"  I  have  by  no  means  an  inconvenient  multitude  of 
friends ;  but  if  they  ever  do  appear  a  little  too  numerous,  it 
is  when  I  am  making  a  list  of  those  to  whom  presentation 
copies  are  to  be  sent.  Please  send  one  to  General  Pierce, 
Horatio  Bridge,  R  W.  Emerson,  W.  E.  Channing,  Longfellow, 
Hillard,  Sumner,  Holmes,  Lowell,  and  Thompson  the  artist. 


HAWTHORNE.  31 

You  will  yourself  give  one  to  Whipple,  whereby  I  shall 
make  a  saving.  I  presume  you  won't  put  the  portrait  into 
the  book.  It  appears  to  me  an  improper  accompaniment  to 
a  new  work.  Nevertheless,  if  it  be  ready,  1  should  be  glad 
to  have  each  of  these  presentation  copies  accompanied  by  a 
copy  of  the  engraving  put  loosely  between  the  leaves.  Good 
by.  I  must  now  trudge  two  miles  to  the  village,  through 
rain  and  mud  knee-deep,  after  that  accursed  proof-sheet. 
The  book  reads  very  well  in  proofs,  but  I  don't  believe  it 
will  take  like  the  former  one.  The  preliminary  chapter  was 
what  gave  '  The  Scarlet  Letter  '  its  vogue." 

The  engraving  he  refers  to  in  this  letter  was 
made  from  a  portrait  by  Mr.  C.  Gr.  Thompson,  and 
at  that  time,  1851,  was  an  admirable  likeness.  On 
the  6th  of  March  he  writes  :  — 

"The  package,  with  my  five  heads,  arrived  yesterday 
afternoon,  and  we  are  truly  obliged  to  you  for  putting  so 
many  at  our  disposal.  They  are  admirably  done.  The  chil 
dren  recognized  their  venerable  sire  with  great  delight.  My 
wife  complains  somewhat  of  a  want  of  cheerfulness  in  the 
face ;  and,  to  say  the  truth,  it  does  appear  to  be  afflicted 
with  a  bedevilled  melancholy ;  but  it  will  do  all  the  better 
for  the  author  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter.'  In  the  expression 
there  is  a  singular  resemblance  (which  I  do  not  remember 
in  Thompson's  picture)  to  a  miniature  of  my  father." 

His  letters  to  me,  during  the  summer  of  1851, 
were  frequent  and  sometimes  quite  long.  "  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables  "  was  warmly  wel 
comed,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  On  the  23d  of 
May  he  writes  :  — 

"  Whipple's  notices  have  done  more  than  pleased  me,  for 
they  have  helped  me  to  see  my  book.  Much  of  the  censure 


32  HAWTHORNE. 

I  recognize  as  just ;  I  wish  I  could  feel  the  praise  to  be  so 
fully  deserved.  Being  better  (which  I  insist  it  is)  than 
'  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  I  have  never  expected  it  to  be  so  pop 
ular  (this  steel  pen  makes  me  write  awfully). , 

Esq.,  of  Boston,  has  written  to  me,  complaining  that  I  have 
made  his  grandfather  infamous !  It  seems  there  was  actu 
ally  a  Pyncheon  (or  Pynchon,  as  he  spells  it)  family  resident 
in  Salem,  and  that  their  representative,  at  the  period  of  the 
Revolution,  was  a  certain  Judge  Pynchon,  a  Tory  and  a 

refugee.    This  was  Mr. 's  grandfather,  and  (at  least,  so 

he  dutifully  describes  him)  the  most  exemplary  old  gentle 
man  in  the  world.  There  are  several  touches  in  my  account 
of  the  Pyncheons  which,  he  says,  make  it  probable  that  I 
had  this  actual  family  in  my  eye,  and  he  considers  himself 
infinitely  wronged  and  aggrieved,  and  thinks  it  monstrous 
that  the  '  virtuous  dead  '  cannot  be  suffered  to  rest  quietly 
in  their  graves.  He  further  complains  that  I  speak  disre 
spectfully  of  the 's  in  G-randfather's  Chair.  He  writes 

more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,  though  there  is  quite  enough 
of  the  latter  quality  to  give  piquancy  to  his  epistle.  The  joke 
of  the  matter  is,  that  I  never  heard  of  his  grandfather,  nor 
knew  that  any  Pyncheons  had  ever  lived  in  Salem,  but  took 
the  name  because  it  suited  the  tone  of  my  book,  and  was  as 
much  my  property,  for  fictitious  purposes,  as  that  of  Smith. 
I  have  pacified  him  by  a  very  polite  and  gentlemanly  letter, 
and  if  ever  you  publish  any  more  of  the  Seven  Gables,  I 
should  like  to  write  a  brief  preface,  expressive  of  my  anguish 
for  this  unintentional  wrong,  and  making  the  best  repara 
tion  possible ;  else  these  wretched  old  Pyncheons  will  have 
no  peace  in  the  other  world,  nor  in  this.  Furthermore,  there 

is  a  Rev.  Mr. ,  resident  within  four  miles  of  me,  and  a 

cousin  of  Mr. ,  who  states  that  he  likewise  is  highly  in 
dignant.  Who  would  have  dreamed  of  claimants  starting  up 
for  such  an  inheritance  as  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  ! 

"  I  mean  to  write,  within  six  weeks  or  two  months  next 
ensuing,  a  book  of  stories  made  up  of  classical  myths.  The 
subjects  are :  The  Story  of  Midas,  with  his  Golden  Touch, 


HAWTHOENE.  33 

Pandora's  Box,  The  Adventure  of  Hercules  in  quest  of  the 
Golden  Apples,  Bellerophon  and  the  Chimera,  Baucis  and 
Philemon,  Perseus  and  Medusa;  these,  I  think,  will  be 
enough  to  make  up  a  volume.  As  a  framework,  I  shall  have 
a  young  college  student  telling  these  stories  to  his  cousins 
and  brothers  and  sisters,  during  his  vacations,  sometimes  at 
the  fireside,  sometimes  in  the  woods  and  dells.  Unless  I 
greatly  mistake,  these  old  fictions  will  work  up  admirably 
for  the  purpose ;  and  I  shall  aim  at  substituting  a  tone  in 
some  degree  Gothic  or  romantic,  or  any  such  tone  as  may 
best  please  myself,  instead  of  the  classic  coldness,  which  is 
as  repellent  as  the  touch  of  marble. 

"  I  give  you  these  hints  of  my  plan,  because  you  will  per 
haps  think  it  advisable  to  employ  Billings  to  prepare  some 
illustrations.  There  is  a  good  scope  in  the  above  subjects 
for  fanciful  designs.  Bellerophon  arid  the  Chimera,  for  in 
stance:  the  Chimera  a  fantastic  monster  with  three  heads, 
and  Bellerophon  fighting  him,  mounted  on  Pegasus ;  Pan 
dora  opening  the  box ;  Hercules  talking  with  Atlas,  an  enor 
mous  giant  who  holds  the  sky  on  his  shoulders,  or  sailing 
across  the  sea  in  an  immense  bowl ;  Perseus  transforming  a 
king  and  all  his  subjects  to  stone,  by  exhibiting  the  Gor 
gon's  head.  No  particular  accuracy  in  costume  need  be 
aimed  at.  My  stories  will  bear  out  the  artist  in  any  liber 
ties  he  may  be  inclined  to  take.  Billings  would  do  these 
things  well  enough,  though  his  characteristics  are  grace  and 
delicacy  rather  than  wildness  of  fancy.  The  book,  if  it  comes 
out  of  my  mind  as  I  see  it  now,  ought  to  have  pretty  wide 
success  amongst  young  people  ;  and,  of  course,  I  shall  purge 
out  all  the  old  heathen  wickedness,  and  put  in  a  moral 
wherever  practicable.  For  a  title  how  would  this  do -.  'A 
Wonder-Book  for  Girls  and  Boys  ' ;  or,  '  The  Wonder-Book 
of  Old  Stories  '  ?  I  prefer  the  former.  Or  '  Myths  Modern 
ized  for  my  Children ' ;  that  won't  do. 

"  I  need  a  little  change  of  scene,  and  meant  to  have 
come  to  Boston  and  elsewhere  before  writing  this  book ;  but 
I  cannot  leave  home  at  present." 


HAWTHORNE. 

Throughout  the  summer  Hawthorne  was  con 
stantly  worried  by  people  who  insisted  that  they, 
or  their  families  in  the  present  or  past  generations, 
had  been  deeply  wronged  in  "  The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables."  In  a  note,  received  from  him  on 
the  5th  of  June,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  still  another  claimant 
of  the  Pyncheon  estate.  1  wonder  if  ever,  and  how  soon,  I 
shall  get  a  just  estimate  of  how  many  jackasses  there  are  in 
this  ridiculous  world.  My  correspondent,  by  the  way,  esti 
mates  the  number  of  these  Pyncheon  jackasses  at  about 
twenty ;  I  am  doubtless  to  be  remonstrated  with  by  each 
individual.  After  exchanging  shots  with  all  of  them,  I  shall 
get  you  to  publish  the  whole  correspondence,  in  a  style  to 
match  that  of  my  other  works,  and  I  anticipate  a  great  run 
for  the  volume. 

"  P.  S.  My  last  correspondent  demands  that  another 
name  be  substituted,  instead  of  that  of  the  family ;  to  which 
1  assent,  in  case  the  publishers  can  be  prevailed  on  to 
cancel  the  stereotype  plates.  Of  course  you  will  consent ! 
Pray  do !  " 

Praise  now  poured  in  upon  him  from  all  quar 
ters.  Hosts  of  critics,  both  in  England  and 
America,  gallantly  came  forward  to  do  him  service, 
and  his  fame  was  assured.  On  the  15th  of  July  he 
sends  me  a  jubilant  letter  from  Lenox,  from  which 
I  will  copy  several  passages  :  — 

"  Mrs.  Kemble  writes  very  good  accounts  from  London 
of  the  reception  my  two  romances  have  met  with  there.  She 
says  they  have  made  a  greater  sensation  than  any  book  since 
*  Jane  Eyre ' ;  but  probably  she  is  a  little  or  a  good  deal  too 
emphatic  in  her  representation  of  the  matter.  At  any  rate, 


HAWTHORNE.  37 

she  advises  that  the  sheets  of  any  future  book  be  sent  to 
Moxon,  and  such  an  arrangement  made  that  a  copyright 
may  be  secured  in  England  as  well  as  here.  Could  this  be 
done  with  the  Wonder-Book?  And  do  you. think  it  would 
be  worth  while  ?  1  must  see  the  proof-sheets  of  this  book. 
It  is  a  cursed  bore ;  for  I  want  to  be  done  with  it  from  this 
moment.  Can't  you  arrange  it  so  that  two  or  three  or  more 
sheets  may  be  sent  at  once,  on  stated  days,  and  so  my  jour 
neys  to  the  village  be  fewer  V 

"That  review  which  you  sent  me  is  a  remarkable  produc 
tion.  There  is  praise  enough  to  satisfy  a  greedier  author 
than  myself.  I  set  it  aside,  as  not  being  able  to  estimate 
how  far  it  is  deserved.  I  can  better  judge  of  the  censure, 
much  of  which  is  undoubtedly  just ;  and  I  shall  profit  by  it 
if  I  can.  But;  after  all,  there  would  be  no  great  use  in  at 
tempting  it.  There  are  weeds  enough  in  my  mind,  to  be 
sure,  and  I  might  pluck  them  up  by  the  handful ;  but  in  so 
doing  I  should  root  up  the  few  flowers  along  with  them.  It 
is  also  to  be  considered,  that  \vhat  one  man  calls  weeds  an 
other  classifies  among  the  choicest  flowers  in  the  garden. 
But  this  reviewer  is  certainly  a  man  of  sense,  and  sometimes 
tickles  me  under  the  fifth  rib.  1  beg  you  to  observe,  how 
ever,  that  I  do  not  acknowledge  his  justice  in  cutting  and 
slashing  among  the  characters  of  the  two  books  at  the  rate 
he  does ;  sparing  nobody,  I  think,  except  Pearl  and  Phoebe. 
Yet  I  think  he  is  right  as  to  my  tendency  as  respects  indi 
vidual  character. 

"  I  am  going  to  begin  to  enjoy  the  summer  now,  and  to 
read  foolish  novels,  if  I  can  get  any,  and  smoke  cigars,  and 
think  of  nothing  at  all;  which  is  equivalent  to  thinking  of 
all  mariner  of  things." 

The  composition  of  the  "  Tanglewood  Tales  " 
gave  him  pleasant  employment,  and  all  his  letters, 
during  the  period  he  was  writing  them,  overflow 
with  evidences  of  his  felicitous  mood.  He  requests 


38  HAWTHORNE. 

that  Billings  should  -pay  especial  attention  to  the 
drawings,  and  is  anxious  that  the  porch  of  Tangle- 
wood  should  be  "  well  supplied  with  shrubbery." 
He  seemed  greatly  pleased  that  Mary  Russell  Mit- 
ford  had  fallen  in  with  his  books  and  had  written 
to  me  about  them.  "Her  sketches,"  he  said,  "long 
ago  as  I  read  them,  are  as  sweet  in  my  memory  as 
the  scent  of  new  hay."  On  the  18th  of  August  he 
writes  :  — 

"  You  are  going  to  publish  another  thousand  of  the  Seven 
Gables.  I  promised  those  Pyncheons  a  preface.  What  if 
you  insert  the  following  ? 

"  (The  author  is  pained  to  learn  that,  in  selecting  a  name 
for  the  fictitious  inhabitants  of  a  castle  in  the  air,  he  has 
wounded  the  feelings  of  more  than  one  respectable  descend 
ant  of  an  old  Pyncheon  family.  He  begs  leave  to  say  that 
he  intended  no  reference  to  any  individual  of  the  name,  now 
or  heretofore  extant ;  and  further,  that,  at  the  time  of  writ 
ing  his  book,  he  was  wholly  unaware  of  the  existence  of 
such  a  family  in  New  England  for  two  hundred  years  back, 
and  that  whatever  he  may  have  since  learned  of  them  is 
altogether  to  their  credit.) 

"  Insert  it  or  not,  as  you  like.  I  have  done  with  the 
matter." 

I  advised  him  to  let  the  Pyncheons  rest  as  they 
were,  and  omit  any  addition,  either  as  note  or 
preface,  to  the  romance. 

Near  the  close  of  1851  his  health  seemed  un 
settled,  and  he  asked  me  to  look  over  certain  proofs 
"  carefully,"  for  he  did  not  feel  well  enough  to 
manage  them  himself.  In  one  of  his  notes,  written 
from  Lenox  at  that  time,  he  says  :  — 


HAWTHORNE.  39 

"  Please  God,  I  mean  to  look  you  in  the  face  towards  the 
end  of  next  week  ;  at  all  events,  within  ten  days.  I  have 
stayed  here  too  long  and  too  constantly.  To  tell  you  a 
secret,  I  am  sick  to  death  of  Berkshire,  and  hate  to  think  of 
spending  another  winter  here.  But  I  must.  The  air  and 
climate  do  not  agree  with  my  health  at  all ;  and,  for  the 
first  time  since  I  was  a  boy,  I  have  felt  languid  and  dispir 
ited  during  almost  my  whole  residence  here.  0  that  Provi 
dence  would  build  me  the  merest  little  shanty,  and  mark 
me  out  a  rood  or  two  of  garden-ground,  near  the  sea-coast. 
1  thank  you  for  the  two  volumes  of  De  Quincey.  If  it  were 
not  for  your  kindness  in  supplying  me  with  books  now  and 
then,  I  should  quite  forget  how  to  read." 

Hawthorne  was  a  hearty  devourer  of  hooks,  and 
in  certain  moods  of  mind  it  made  very  little  differ 
ence  what  the  volume  before  him  happened  to  be. 
An  old  play  or  an  old  newspaper  sometimes  gave 
him  wondrous  great  content,  and  he  would  ponder 
the  sleepy,  uninteresting  sentences  as  if  they  con 
tained  immortal  mental  aliment.  He  once  told  me 
he  found  such  delight  in  old  advertisements  in  the 
newspaper  files  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  that  he 
had  passed  delicious  hours  among  them.  At  other 
times  he  was  very  fastidious,  and  threw  aside  book 
after  book  until  he  found  the  right  one.  De 
Quincey  was  a  special  favorite  with  him,  and  the 
Sermons  of  Laurence  Sterne  he  once  commended 
to  me  as  the  best  sermons  ever  written.  In  his 
library  was  an  early  copy  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's 
"  Arcadia,"  which  had  floated  down  to  him  from  a 
remote  ancestry,  and  which  he  had  read  so  indus- 


40  HAWTHORNE. 

triously  for  forty  years  that  it  was  nearly  worn  out 
of  its  thick  leathern  cover.  Hearing  him  say  once 
that  the  old  English  State  Trials  were  enchanting 
reading,  and  knowing  that  he  did  not  possess  a 
copy  of  those  heavy  folios,  I  picked  up  a  set  one 
day  in  a  book-shop  and  sent  them  to  him.  He  often 
told  me  that  he  spent  more  hours  over  them  and 
got  more  delectation  out  of  them  than  tongue  could 
tell,  and  he  said,  if  five  lives  were  vouchsafed  to 
him,  he  could  employ  them 'all  in  writing  stories 
out  of  those  books.  He  had  sketched,  in  his  mind, 
several  romances  founded  on  the  remarkable  trials 
reported  in  the  ancient  volumes ;  and  one  day,  I 
remember,-  he  made  my  blood  tingle  by  relating 
some  of  the  situations  he  intended,  if  his  life  was 
spared,  to  weave  into  future  romances.  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  novels  he  continued  almost  to  worship,  and 
was  accustomed  to  read  them  aloud  in  his  family. 
The  novels  of  G.  P.  R.  James,  both  the  early  and 
the  later  ones,  he  insisted  were  admirable  stories, 
admirably  told,  and  he  had  high  praise  to  bestow 
on  the  works  of  Anthony  Trollope.  "  Have  you 
ever  read  these  novels  ?  "  he  wrote  to  me  in  a 
letter  from  England,  some  time  before  Trollope 
began  to  be  much  known  in  America.  "  They 
precisely  suit  'my  taste  ;  solid  and  substantial, 
written  on  the  strength  of  beef  and  through  the 
inspiration  of  ale,  and  just  as  real  as  if  some  giant 
had  hewn  a  great  lump  out  of  the  earth  and  put  it 


HAWTHORNE.  41 

under  a  glass  case,  with  all  its  inhabitants  going 
about  their  daily  business  arid  not  suspecting  that 
they  were  made  a  show  of.  And  these  books  are 
as  English  as  a  beefsteak.  Have  they  ever  been 
tried  in  America  ?  It  needs  an  English  residence 
to  make  them  thoroughly  comprehensible ;  but  still 
I  should  think  that  the  human  nature  in  them 
would  give  them  success  anywhere." 

I  have  often  been  asked  if  all  his  moods  were 
sombre,  and  if  he  was  never  jolly  sometimes  like 
other  people.  Indeed  he  was ;  and  although  the 
humorous  side  of  Hawthorne  was  not  easily  or 
often  discoverable,  yet  have  I  seen  him  marvel 
lously  moved  to  fun,  and  no  man  laughed  more 
heartily  in  his  way  over  a  good  story.  Wise  and 
witty  H ,  in  whom  wisdom  and  wit  are  so  in 
grained  that  age  only  increases  his  subtile  spirit, 
and  greatly  enhances  the  power  of  his  cheerful  tem 
perament,  always  had  the  talismanic  faculty  of 
breaking  up  that  thoughtfully  sad  face  into  mirthful 
waves ;  and  I  remember  how  Hawthorne  writhed 
with  hilarious  delight  over  Professor  L 's  ac 
count  of  a  butcher  who  remarked  that  "  Idees  had 
got  afloat  in  the  *public  mind  with  respect  to  sas- 
singers."  I  once  told  him  of  a  young  woman  who 
brought  in  a  manuscript,  and  said,  as  she  placed  it 
in  my  hands,  "  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with 
myself  sometimes,  I  'm  so  filled  with  mammoth 
thoughts''1 '  A  series  of  convulsive  efforts  to  sup- 


42  HAWTHORNE. 

press  explosive  laughter  followed,  which  I  remember 
to  this  day. 

He  had  an  inexhaustible  store  of  amusing  anec 
dotes  to  relate  of  people  and  things  he  had  observed 
on  the  road.  One  day  he  described  to  me,  in  his 
inimitable  and  quietly  ludicrous  manner,  being 
watched,  while  on  a  visit  to  a  distant  city,  by  a 
friend  who  called,  and  thought  he  needed  a  pro 
tector,  his  health  being  at  that  time  not  so  good 
as  usual.  "  He  stuck  by  me,"  said  Hawthorne, 
"  as  if  he  were  afraid  to  leave  me  alone  ;  he  stayed 
past  the  dinner-hour,  and  when  I  began  to  wonder 
if  he  never  took  meals  himself,  he  departed  and  set 
another  man  to  watch  me  till  he  should  return. 
That  man  watched  me  so,  in  his  unwearying  kind 
ness,  that  when  I  left  the  house  I  forgot  half  my 
luggage,  and  left  behind,  among  other  things,  a 
beautiful  pair  of  slippers.  They  watched  me  so, 
among  them,  I  swear  to  you  I  forgot  nearly  every 
thing  I  owned." 

Hawthorne  is  still  looking  at  me  in  his  far-see 
ing  way,  as  if  he  were  pondering  what  was  next  to 
be  said  about  him.  It  would  npt  displease  him,  I 
know,  if  I  were  to  begin  my  discursive  talk  to-day 
by  telling  a  little  incident  connected  with  a  famous 
American  poem. 

Hawthorne  dined  one  day  with  Longfellow,  and 
brought  with  him  a  friend  from  Salem.  After 


.OF 

.;  'HAWTHOKNE.  43 


dinner  the  friend  said :  "  I  have  been  trying  to 
persuade  Hawthorne  to  write  a  story,  hased  upon  a 
legend  of  Acadie,  and  still  current  there ;  a  legend 
of  a  girl  who,  in  the  dispersion  of  the  Acadians, 
was  separated  from  her  lover,  and  passed  her  life  in 
waiting  and  seeking  for  him,  and  only  found  him 
dying  in  a  hospital,  when  both  were  old."  Long 
fellow  wondered  that  this  legend  did  not  strike  the 
fancy  of  Hawthorne,  and  said  to  him :  "  If  you 
have  really  made  up  your  mind  not  to  use  it  for  a 
story,  will  you  give  it  to  me  for  a  poem  ?  "  To  this 
Hawthorne  assented,  and  moreover  promised  not  to 
treat  the  subject  in  prose  till  Longfellow  had  seen 
what  he  could  do  with  it  in  verse.  And  so  we 
have  "  Evangeline  "  in  beautiful  hexameters,  —  a 
poem  that  will  hold  its  place  in  literature  while 
true  affection  lasts.  Hawthorne  rejoiced  in  this 
great  success  of  Longfellow,  arid  loved  to  count  up 
the  editions,  both  foreign  and  American,  of  this 
now  world-renowned  poem. 

I  have  lately  met  an  early  friend  of  Hawthorne's, 
older  than  himself,  who  knew  him  intimately  all  his 
life  long,  and  I  have  learned  some  additional  facts 
about  his  youthful  days.  Soon  after  he  left  college 
he  wrote  some  stories  which  he  called  "  Seven  Tales 
of  my  Native  Land."  The  motto  which  he  chose 
for  the  title-page  was  "  We  are  Seven,"  from  Words 
worth.  My  informant  read  the  tales  in  manuscript, 
and  says  some  of  them  were  very  striking,  particu- 


44  HAWTHORNE. 

larly  one  or  two  Witch  Stories.  As  soon  as  the 
little  book  was  well  prepared  for  the  press  he  de 
liberately  threw  it  into  the  fire,  and  sat  by  to  see 
its  destruction. 

When  about  fourteen,  he  wrote  out  for  a  member 
of  his  family  a  list  of  the  books  he  had  at  that  time 
been  reading.  The  catalogue  was  a  long  one,  but  my 
informant  remembers  that  The  \Vaverley  Novels, 
Rousseau's  Works,  and  The  Newgate  Calender  were 
among  them.  Serious  remonstrances  were  made  by 
the  family  touching  the  perusal  of  this  last  work, 
but  he  persisted  in  going  through  it  to  the  end. 
He  had  an  objection  in  his  boyhood  to  reading 
much  that  was  called  "true  and  useful."  Of  his 
tory  in  general  he  was  not  very  fond,  but  he  read 
Froissart  with  interest,  and  Clarendon's  History  of 
the  Rebellion.  He  is  remembered  to  have  said  at 
that  time  "  he  cared  very  little  for  the  history  of 
the  world  before  the  fourteenth  century."  After  he 
left  college  he  read  a  great  deal  of  French  literature, 
especially  the  works  of  Voltaire  and  his  contempo 
raries.  He  rarely  went  into  the  streets  during  the 
daytime,  unless  there  was  to  be  a  gathering  of  the 
people  for  some  public  purpose,  such  as  a  political 
meeting,  a  military  muster,  or  a  fire.  A  great  con 
flagration  attracted  him  in  a  peculiar  manner,  and 
he  is  remembered,  while  a  young  man  in  Salem,  to 
have  been  often  seen  looking  on,  from  some  dark 
corner,  while  the  fire  was  raging.  When  General 


HAWTHORNE.  45 

Jackson,  of  whom  lie  professed  himself  a  partisan, 
visited  Salem  in  1833,  he  walked  out  to  the  bound 
ary  of  the  town  to  meet  him,  —  not  to  speak  to 
him,  but  only  to  look  at  him.  When  he  came  home 
at  night  he  said  he  found  only  a  few  men  and  boys 
collected,  not  enough  people,  without  the  assistance 
he  rendered,  to  welcome  the  General  with  a  good 
cheer.  It  is  said  that  Susan,  in  the  "  Village  Uncle," 
one  of  the  "Twice-Told  Tales,"  is  not  altogether  a 
creation  of  his  fancy.  Her  father  was  a  fisherman 
living  in  Salem,  and  Hawthorne  was  constantly  tell 
ing  the  members  of  his  family  how  charming  she 
was,  and  he  always  spoke  of  her  as  his  "  mermaid." 
He  said  she  had  a  great  deal  of  what  the  French 
call  espieglerie.  There  was  another  young  beauty, 
living  at  that  time  in  his  native  town,  quite  capti 
vating  to  him,  though  in  a  different  style  from  the 
mermaid.  But  if  his  head  and  heart  were  turned 
in  his  youth  by  these  two  nymphs  in  his  native 
town,  there  was  soon  a  transfer  of  his  affections 
to  quite  another  direction.  His  new  passion  was 
a  much  more  permanent  one,  for  now  there  dawned 
upon  him  so  perfect  a  creature  that  he  fell  in  love 
irrevocably;  all  his  thoughts  and  all  his  delights 
centred  in  her,  who  suddenly  became  indeed  the 
mistress  of  his  soul.  She  filled  the  measure  of  his 
being,  and  became  a  part  and  parcel  of  his  life. 
Who  was  this  mysterious  young  person  that  had 
crossed  his  boyhood's  path  and  made  him  hers 


46  HAWTHORNE. 

forever  ?  Whose  daughter  was  she  that  could  thus 
inthrall  the  ardent  young  man  in  Salem,  who  knew 
as  yet  so  little  of  the  world  and  its  sirens  ?  She 
is  described  by  one  who  met  her  long  before  Haw 
thorne  made  her  acquaintance  as  "the  prettiest  low 
born  lass  that  ever  ran  on  the  greensward,"  and  she 
must  have  been  a  radiant  child  of  beauty,  indeed, 
that  girl!  She  danced  like  a  fairy,  she  sang  ex 
quisitely,  so  that  every  one  who  knew  her  seemed 
amazed  at  her  perfect  way  of  doing  everything  she 
attempted.  "Who  was  it  that  thus  summoned  all 
this  witchery,  making  such  a  tumult  in  young  Haw 
thorne's  bosom?  She  was  "daughter  to  Leontcs 
and  Hermione,"  king  and  queen  of  Sieilia,  and  her 
name  was  Perdita  !  It  was  Shakespeare  who  intro 
duced  Hawthorne  to  his  first  real  love,  and  the  lover 
never  forgot  his  mistress.  He  was  constant  ever, 
and  worshipped  her  through  life.  Beauty  always 
captivated  him.  Where  there  was  beauty  he  fancied 
other  good  gifts  must  naturally  be  in  possession. 
During  his  childhood  homeliness  was  always  repul 
sive  to  him.  When  a  little  boy  he  is  remembered 
to  have  said  to  a  woman  who  wished  to  be  kind  to 
him,  "  Take  her  away !  She  is  ugly  and  fat,  and 
has  a  loud  voice." 

When  quite  a  young  man  he  applied  for  a  situation 
under  Commodore  Wilkes  on  the  Exploring  Expedi 
tion,  but  did  not  succeed  in  obtaining  an  appointment. 
He  thought  this  a  great  misfortune,  as  he  was  fond 


HAWTHORNE.  47 

of  travel,  and  he  promised  to  do  all  sorts  of  wonder 
ful  things,  should  he  be  allowed  to  join  the  voyagers. 
One  very  odd  but  characteristic  notion  of  his, 
when  a  youth,  was,  that  he  should  like  a  com 
petent  income  which  should  neither  increase  nor 
diminish,  for  then,  he  said,  it  would  not  engross 
too  much  of  his  attention.  Surrey's  little  poem, 
"  The  Means  to  obtain  a  Happy  Life,"  expressed 
exactly  what  his  idea  of  happiness  was  when  a  lad. 
When  a  school-boy  he  wrote  verses  for  the  news 
papers,  but  he  ignored  their  existence  in  after  years 
with  a  smile  of  droll  disgust.  One  of  his  quatrains 
lives  in  the  memory  of  a  friend,  who  repeated  it  to 
me  recently:  — 

"  The  ocean  hath  its  silent  caves, 

Deep,  quiet,  and  alone  ; 
Above  them  there  are  troubled  waves, 
Beneath  them  there  are  none." 

When  the  Atlantic  Cable  was  first  laid,  somebody, 
not  knowing  the  author  of  the  lines,  quoted  them 
to  Hawthorne  as  applicable  to  the  calmness  said  to 
exist  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean.  He  listened  to 
the  verse,  and  then  laughingly  observed,  "  I  know 
something  of  the  deep  sea  myself." 

In  1836  he  went  to  Boston,  I  am  told,  to  edit 
the  "  American  Magazine  of  Useful  Knowledge,"  for 
which  he  was  to  be  paid  a  salary  of  six  hundred 
dollars  a  year.  The  proprietors  soon  became  in 
solvent,  so  that  he  received  nothing,  but  he  kept 


48  HAWTHOENE. 

on  just  the  same  as  if  he  had  been  paid  regularly. 
The  plan  of  the  work  proposed  by  the  publishers 
of  the  magazine  admitted  no  fiction  into  its  pages. 
The  magazine  was  printed  on  coarse  paper,  and 
was  illustrated  by  engravings  painful  to  look  at. 
There  were  no  contributors  except  the  editor,  and 
he  wrote  the  whole  of  every  number.  Short  bio 
graphical  sketches  of  eminent  men  and  historical 
narratives  filled  up  its  pages.  I  have  examined  the 
columns  of  this  deceased  magazine,  and  read  Haw 
thorne's  narrative  of  Mrs.  Dustan's  captivity.  Mrs. 
Dustan  was  carried  off  by  the  Indians  from  Haver- 
hill,  and  Hawthorne  does  not  much  commiserate 
the  hardships  she  endured,  but  reserves  his  sym 
pathy  for  her  husband,  who  was  not  carried  into 
captivity,  and  suffered  nothing  from  the  Indians, 
but  who,  he  says,  was  a  tender-hearted  man,  and 
took  care  of  the  children  during  Mrs.  D.'s  absence 
from  home,  and  probably  knew  that  his  wife  would 
be  more  than  a  match  for  a  whole  tribe  of  savages. 

"When  the  llev.  Mr.  Cheever  was  knocked  down 
and  flogged  in  the  streets  of  Salem  and  then  im 
prisoned,  Hawthorne  came  out  of  his  retreat  and 
visited  him  regularly  in  jail,  showing  strong  sym 
pathy  for  the  man  and  great  indignation  for  those 
who  had  maltreated  him. 

Those  early  days  in  Salem,  —  how  interesting  the 
memory  of  them  must  be  to  the  friends  who  knew 
and  followed  the  gentle  dreamer  in  his  budding 


HAWTHORNE.  49 

career !  "When  the  whisper  first  came  to  the  timid 
boy,  in  that  "dismal  chamber  in  Union  Street," 
that  he  too  possessed  the  soul  of  an  artist,  there 
were  not  many  about  him  to  share  the  divine  rap 
ture  that  must  have  filled  his  proud  young  heart. 
Outside  of  his  own  little  family  circle,  doubting  and 
desponding  eyes  looked  upon  him,  and  many  a  stu 
pid  head  wagged  in  derision  as  he  passed  by.  But 
there  was  always  waiting  for  him  a  sweet  and 
honest  welcome  by  the  pleasant  hearth  where  his 
mother  and  sisters  sat  and  listened  to  the  beautiful 
creations  of  his  fresh  and  glowing  fancy.  We  can 
imagine  the  happy  group  gathered  around  the  even 
ing  lamp  !  "Well,  my  son,"  says  the  fond  mother, 
looking  up  from  her  knitting-work,  "what  have  you 
got  for  us  to-night?  It  is  some  time  since  you  read 
us  a  story,  and  your  sisters  are  as  impatient  as  I  am 
to  have  a  new  one."  And  then  we  can  hear,  or 
think  we  hear,  the  young  man  begin  in  a  low  and 
modest  tone  the  story  of  "Edward  Fane's  Rose 
bud,"  or  "The  Seven  Vagabonds,"  or  perchance  (0 
tearful,  happy  evening  !)  that  tender  idyl  of  "  The 
Gentle  Boy !  "  What  a  privilege  to  hear  for  the 
first  time  a  "  Twice-Told  Tale,"  before  it  was  even 
once  told  to  the  public !  And  I  know  with  what 
rapture  the  delighted  little  audience  must  have 
hailed  the  advent  of  every  fresh  indication  that 
genius,  so  seldom  a  visitant  at  any  fireside,  had 
come  down  so.  nois.eless.ly  to  bless  their  quiet 


50  HAWTHORNE. 

hearthstone  in  the  sombre  old  town.  In  striking 
contrast  to  Hawthorne's  audience  nightly  con 
vened  to  listen  while  he  read  his  charming  tales 
and  essays,  I  think  of  poor  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre,  facing  those  hard-eyed  critics  at  the  house 
of  Madame  Neckar,  when,  as  a  young  man  and 
entirely  unknown,  he  essayed  to  read  his  then  un 
published  story  of  "  Paul  and  Virginia."  The  story 
was  simple  and  the  voice  of  the  poor  and  nameless 
reader  trembled.  Everybody  was  unsympathetic 
and.  gaped,  and  at  the  end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
Monsieur  de  Buffon,  who  always  had  a  loud  way 
with  him,  cried  out  to  Madame  Neckar's  servant, 
"Let  the  horses  be  put  to  my  carriage!" 

Hawthorne  seems  never  to  have  known  that  raw 
period  in  authorship  which  is  common  to  most  grow 
ing  writers,  when  the  style  is  "  ovcrlanguaged,"  and 
when  it  plunges  wildly  through  the  "  sandy  deserts 
of  rhetoric,"  or  struggles  as  if  it  were  having  a 
personal  difficulty  with  Ignorance  and  his  brother 
Platitude.  It  was  capitally  said  of  Chateaubriand 
that  "he  lived  on  the  summits  of  syllables,  and  of 
another  young  author  that  he  "was  so  dully  good, 
that  he  made  even  virtue  disreputable."  Haw 
thorne  had  no  such  literary  vices  to  contend  with. 
His  looks  seemed  from  the  start  to  be 

"  Commercing  with  the  skies," 
and  he  marching  upward  to  the  goal  without  im- 


HAWTHORNE.  51 

pediment,  I  was  struck  a  few  days  ago  with  the 
untruth,  so  far  as  Hawthorne  is  concerned,  of  a 
passage  in  the  Preface  to  Endymion.  Keats  says  : 
"  The  imagination  of  a  boy  is  healthy,  and  the  ma 
ture  imagination  of  a  man  is  healthy ;  but  there  is 
a  space  of  life  between,  in  which  the  soul  is  in  a 
ferment,  the  character  undecided,  the  way  of  life  un 
certain,  the  ambition  thick-sighted."  Hawthorne's 
imagination  had  no  middle  period  of  decadence  or 
doubt,  but  continued,  as  it  began,  in  full  vigor  to 
the  end.  

In  1852  I  went  to  Europe,  and  while  absent  had 
frequent  most  welcome  letters  from  the  delightful 
dreamer.  He  had  finished  the  "  Blithedale  Ro 
mance  "  during  my  wanderings,  and  I  was  fortu 
nate  enough  to  arrange  for  its  publication  in  London 
simultaneously  with  its  appearance  in  Boston.  One 
of  his  letters  (dated  from  his  new  residence  in 
Concord,  June  17,  1852)  runs  thus:  — 

"  You  have  succeeded  admirably  in  regard  to  the  '  Blithe- 
dale  Romance,'  and  have  got  £  150  more  than  I  expected  to 
receive.  It  will  come  in  good  time,  too  ;  for  rny  drafts  have 
been  pretty  heavy  of  late,  in  consequence  of  buying  an  es 
tate  !  ! !  and  fitting  up  my  house.  What  a  truant  you  are 
from  the  Corner !  I  wish,  before  leaving  London,  you 
would  obtain  for  me  copies  of  any  English  editions  of  my 
writings  not  already  in  my  possession.  I  have  Routledge's 
edition  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter,'  the  '  Mosses,'  and  '  Twice- 
Told  Tales  ' ;  Bohn's  editions  of  '  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,'  the  '  Snow-Image,'  and  the  '  Wonder-Book,'  and 


HAWTHORNE. 

Bogue's  edition  of  'The  Scarlet  Letter'; — these  are  all, 
and  I  should  be  glad  of  the  rest.  I  meant  to  have  written 
another  '  Wonder-Book  '  this  summer,  but  another  task  has 
unexpectedly  intervened.  General  Pierce  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  the  Democratic  nominee  for  the  Presidency,  was  a 
college  friend  of  mine,  as  you  know,  and  we  have  been  inti 
mate  through  life.  He  wishes  me  to  write  his  biography, 
and  I  have  consented  to  do  so ;  somewhat  reluctantly,  how 
ever,  for  Pierce  has  now  reached  that  altitude  when  a  man, 
careful  of  his  personal  dignity,  will  begin  to  think  of  cutting 
his  acquaintance.  But  I  seek  nothing  from  him,  and  there 
fore  need  not  be  ashamed  to  tell  the  truth  of  an  old  friend. 
....  I  have  written  to  Barry  Cornwall,  and  shall  probably 
enclose  the  letter  along  with  this.  I  don't  more  than  half 
believe  what  you  tell  me  of  my  reputation  in  England,  and 
am  only  so  far  credulous  on  the  strength  of  the  £  200,  and 
shall  have  a  somewhat  stronger  sense  of  this  latter  reality 
when  I  finger  the  cash.  Do  come  home  in  season  to  preside 
over  the  publication  of  the  Bxmiance." 

He  had  christened  his  estate  The  Wayside,  and 
in  a  postscript  to  the  above  letter  he  begs  me  to 
consider  the  name  and  tell  him  how  I  like  it. 

Another  letter,  evidently  foreshadowing  a  foreign 
appointment  from  the  newly  elected  President,  con 
tains  this  passage :  — 

"  Do  make  some  inquiries  about  Portugal ;  as,  for  instance, 
in  what  part  of  the  world  it  lies,  and  whether  it  is  an  em 
pire,  a  kingdom,  or  a  republic.  Also,  and  more  particularly, 
the  expenses  of  living  there,  and  whether  the  Minister 
would  be  likely  to  be  much  pestered  with  his  own  country 
men.  Also,  any  other  information  about  foreign  countries 
would  be  acceptable  to  an  inquiring  mind." 

When  I  returned  from  abroad  I  found  him  get 
ting  matters  in  readiness  to  leave  the  country  for  a 


HAWTHORNE.  55 

consulship  in  Liverpool.  lie  seemed  happy  at  the 
thought  of  flitting,  but  I  wondered  if  he  could 
possibly  be  as  contented  across  the  water  as  he  was 
in  Concord.  I  remember  walking  with  him  to  the 
Old  Manse,  a  mile  or  so  distant  from  The  Wayside, 
his  new  residence,  and  talking  over  England  and 
his  proposed  absence  of  several  years.  We  strolled 
round  the  house,  where  he  spent  the  first  years  of 
his  married  life,  and  he  pointed  from  the  outside  to 
the  windows,  out  of  which  he  had  looked  and  seen 
supernatural  and  other  visions.  We  walked  up  and 
down  the  avenue,  the  memory  of  which  he  has  em 
balmed  in  the  "  Mosses,"  and  he  discoursed  most 
pleasantly  of  all  that  had  befallen  him  since  he  led 
a  lonely,  secluded  life  in  Salem.  It  was  a  sleepy, 
warm  afternoon,  and  he  proposed  that  we  should 
wander  up  the  banks  of  the  river  and  lie  down 
arid  watch  the  clouds  float  above  and  in  the  quiet 
stream.  I  recall  his  lounging,  easy  air  as  he  tolled 
me  along  until  we  came  to  a  spot  secluded,  and 
ofttimes  sacred  to  his  wayward  thoughts.  He  bade 
me  lie  down  on  the  grass  and  hear  the  birds  sing. 
As  we  steeped  ourselves  in  the  delicious  idleness,  he 
began  to  murmur  some  half- forgotten  lines  from 
Thomson's  "  Seasons,"  wrhich  he  said  had  been 
favorites  of  his  from  boyhood.  While  we  lay  there, 
hidden  in  the  grass,  we  heard  approaching  footsteps, 
and  Hawthorne  hurriedly  whispered,  "  Duck  !  or 
we  shall  be  interrupted  by  somebody."  The  solem- 


56  HAWTHORNE. 

nity  of  his  manner,  and  the  thought  of  the  down- 
flat  position  in  which  we  had  both  placed  ourselves 
to  avoid  being  seen,  threw  me  into  a  foolish,  semi- 
hysterical  fit  of  laughter,  and  when  he  nudged  me, 
and  again  whispered  more  lugubriously  than  ever, 
"  Heaven  help  me,  Mr.  —  —  is  close  upon  us  !  "  I 
felt  convinced  that  if  the  thing  went  further,  suffo 
cation,  in  my  case  at  least,  must  ensue. 

He  kept  me  constantly  informed,  after  he  went 
to  Liverpool,  of  how  he  was  passing  his  time ;  and 
his  charming  "  English  Note-Books "  reveal  the 
fact  that  he  was  never  idle.  There  were  touches, 
however,  in  his  private  letters  which  escaped  daily 
record  in  his  journal,  and  I  remember  how  delight 
ful  it  was,  after  he  landed  in  Europe,  to  get  his 
frequent  missives.  In  one  of  the  first  he  gives  me 
an  account  of  a  dinner  where  he  was  obliged  to 
make  a  speech.  He  says  :  — • 

"I  tickled  up  John  Bull's  self-conceit  (which  is  very 
easily  done)  with  a  few  sentences  of  most  outrageous  flat 
tery,  and  sat  down  in  a  general  puddle  of  good  feeling."  In 
another  he  says :  "  I  have  taken  a  house  in  Rock  Park,  on 
the  Cheshire  side  of  the  Mersey,  and  am  as  snug  as  a  bug 
in  a  rug.  Next  year  you  must  come  and  see  how  I  live. 
Give  my  regards  to  everybody,  and  my  love  to  half  a  dffien. 
....  I  wish  you  would  call  on  Mr.  Savage,  the  antiqua 
rian,  if  you  know  him,  and  ask  whether  he  can  inform  me 
what  part  of  England  the  original  William  Hawthorne  came 

from.     He  came  over,  I   think,  in   1634 It  would 

really  he  a  great  obligation  if  he  could  answer  the  above 
query.  Or,  if  the  fact  is  not  within  his  own  knowledge,  he 


HAWTHOENE.  57 

might  perhaps  indicate  some  place  where  such  information 
might  be  obtained  here  in  England.  I  presume  there  are 
records  still  extant  somewhere  of  all  the  passengers  by  those 
early  ships,  with  their  English  localities  annexed  to  their 
names.  Of  all  things,  I  should  like  to  find  a  gravestone  in 
one  of  these  old  churchyards  with  my  own  name  upon  it, 
although,  for  myself,  I  should  wish  to  be  buried  in  America. 
The  graves  are  too  horribly  damp  here." 

The  hedge-rows  of  England,  the  grassy  meadows, 
and  the  picturesque  old  cottages  delighted  him,  and 
he  was  never  tired  of  writing  to  me  about  them. 
While  wandering  over  the  country,  he  was  often 
deeply  touched  by  meeting  among  the  wild-flowers 
many  of  his  old  New  England  favorites,  —  blue 
bells,  crocuses,  primroses,  foxglove,  and  other 
flowers  which  are  cultivated  in  our  gardens,  and 
which  had  long  been  familiar  to  him  in  America. 

I  can  imagine  him,  in  his  quiet,  musing  way, 
strolling  through  the  daisied  fields  on  a  Sunday 
morning  and  hearing  the  distant  church-bells  chim 
ing  to  service.  His  religion  was  deep  and  broad, 
but  it  was  irksome  for  him  to  be  fastened  in  by  a 
pew-door,  and  I  doubt  if  he  often  heard  an  English 
sermon.  He  very  rarely  described  himself  as  in 
side  a  church,  but  he  liked  to  wander  among  the 
graves  in  the  churchyards  and  read  the  epitaphs  on 
the  moss-grown  slabs.  He  liked  better  to  meet  and 
have  a  talk  with  the  sea-ton  than  with  the  rector. 

He  was  constantly  demanding  longer  letters  from 
home ;  and  nothing  gave  him  more  pleasure  than 


58         HAWTHOBNE. 

monthly  news  from  "  The  Saturday  Club,"  and 
detailed  accounts  of  what  was  going  forward  in 
literature.  One  of  his  letters  dated  in  January, 
1854,  starts  off  thus  :  — 

"  I  wish  your  epistolary  propensities  were  stronger  than 
they  are.  All  your  letters  to  me  since  I  left  America  might 

be  squeezed  into  one I  send  Ticknor  a  big  cheese, 

which  I  long  ago  promised  him,  and  my  advice  is,  that  he  keep 
it  in  the  shop,  and  daily,  between  eleven  and  one  o'clock, 
distribute  slices  of  it  to  your  half-starved  authors,  together 

with  crackers  and  something  to  drink I  thank  you 

for  the  books  you  send  me,  and  more  especially  for  Mrs. 
Mowatt's  Autobiography,  which  seems  to  me  an  admirable 
book.  Of  all  things  I  delight  in  autobiographies;  and  I 
hardly  ever  read  one  that  interested  me  so  much.  She  must 
be  a  remarkable  woman,  and  I  cannot  but  lament  my  ill 
fortune  in  never  having  seen  her  on  the  stage  or  elsewhere. 
....  I  count  strongly  upon  your  promise  to  be  with  us  in 
May.  Can't  you  bring  Whipple  with  you  ?  " 

One  of  his  favorite  resorts  in  Liverpool  was  the 
boarding-house  of  good  Mrs.  Blodgett,  in  Duke 
Street,  a  house  where  many  Americans  have  found 
delectable  quarters,  after  being  tossed  on  the  stormy 
Atlantic.  "  I  have  never  known  a  better  woman," 
Hawthorne  used  to  say,  "  and  her  motherly  kind 
ness  to  me  and  mine  I  can  never  forget."  Hun 
dreds  of  American  travellers  will  bear  witness  to 
the  excellence  of  that  beautiful  old  lady,  who  pre 
sided  with  such  dignity  and  sweetness  over  her 
hospitable  mansion. 

On  the  13th  of  April,  1854,  Hawthorne  wrote 


HAWTHORNE.  59 

to  me  this  characteristic  letter  from  the  consular 
office  in  Liverpool :  — 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  the  '  Mosses  '  have  come  into  the 
hands  of  our  firm ;  and  I  return  the  copy  sent  me,  after  a 
rareful  revision.  When  I  wrote  those  dreamy  sketches,  I 
little  thought  that  I  should  ever  preface  an  edition  for  the 
press  amidst  the  bustling  life  of  a  Liverpool  consulate. 
Upon  my  honor,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  entirely  compre 
hend  my  own  meaning  in  some  of  these  blasted  allegories  ; 
but  I  remember  that  I  always  had  a  meaning,  or  at  least 
thought  I  had.  I  am  a  good  deal  changed  since  those 
times ;  and,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  my  past  self  is  not  very 
much  to  my  taste,  as  I  see  myself  in  this  book.  Yet  cer 
tainly  there  is  more  in  it  than  the  public  generally  gave  me 
credit  for  at  the  time  it  was  written. 

"  But  I  don't  think  myself  worthy  of  very  much  more 
credit  than  I  got.  It  has  been  a  very  disagreeable  task  to 
read  the  book.  The  story  of  c  Uappaccini's  Daughter '  was 
published  in  the  Democratic  Review,  about  the  year  1844 ; 
and  it  was  prefaced  by  some  remarks  on  the  celebrated  French 
author  (a  certain  M.  de  1'Aubepine),  from  whose  works  it 
was  translated.  I  left  out  this  preface  when  the  story  was 
republisbed;  but  I  wish  you  would  turn  to  it  in  the  Demo 
cratic,  and  see  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  insert  it  in  the 
new  edition.  I  leave  it  altogether  to  your  judgment. 

"  A  young  poet  named has  called  on  me,  and  has  sent 

me  some  copies  of  his  works  to  be  transmitted  to  America. 
It  seems  to  me  there  is  good  in  him ;  and  he  is  recognized 
by  Tennyson,  by  Carlyle,  by  Kmgsley,  and  others  of  the 
best  people  here.  He  writes  me  that  this  edition  of  his 
poems  is  nearly  exhausted,  and  that  Routledge  is  going  to 
publish  another,  enlarged  and  in  better  style. 

"  Perhaps  it  might  be  well  for  you  to  take  him  up  in 
America.  At  all  events,  try  to  bring  him  into  notice ;  and 
some  day  or  other  you  may  be  glad  to  have  helped  a  famous 


60  HAWTHORNE. 

poet  in  his  obscurity.  The  poor  fellow  has  left  a  good  post 
in  the  customs  to  cultivate  literature  in  London  ! 

"  We  shall  begin  to  look  for  you  now  by  every  steamer 
from  Boston.  You  must  make  up  your  mind  to  spend  a 
good  while  with  us  before  going  to  see  your  London  friends. 

"  Did  you  read  the  article  on  your  friend  De  Quincey  in 

the  last  Westminster  ?  It  was  written  by  Mr. of  this 

city,  who  was  in  America  a  year  or  two  ago.  The  article  is 
pretty  well,  but  does  nothing  like  adequate  justice  to  De 
Quincey ;  and  in  fact  no  Englishman  cares  a  pin  for  him. 
We  are  ten  times  as  good  readers  and  critics  as  they. 

"  Is  not  Whipple  coming  here  soon  ?  " 

Hawthorne's  first  visit  to  London  afforded  him 
great  pleasure,  but  he  kept  out  of  the  way  of  liter 
ary  people  as  much  as  possible.  He  introduced 
himself  to  nobody,  except  Mr. ,  whose  assist 
ance  he  needed,  in  order  to  be  identified  at  the 
bank.  He  wrote  to  me  from  24  George  Street, 
Hanover  Square,  and  told  me  he  delighted  in  Lon 
don,  and  wished  he  could  spend  a  year  there.  He 
enjoyed  floating  about,  in  a  sort  of  unknown  way, 
among  the  rotund  aud  rubicund  figures  made  jolly 
with  ale  and  port-wine.  He  was  greatly  amused 
at  being  told  (his  informants  meaning  to  be  com 
plimentary)  "that  he  would  never  be  taken  for  any 
thing  but  an  Englishman."  He  called  Tennyson's 
"Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,"  just  printed  at 
that  time,  "a  broken-kneed  gallop  of  a  poem." 
He  writes  :  — 

"  John  Bull  is  in  high  spirits  just  now  at  the  taking  of 
Sebastopol.  What  an  absurd  personage  John  is !  I  find 


HAWTHORNE.  61 

that  my  liking  for  him  grows  stronger  the  more  I  see  of 
him,  but  that  my  admiration  and  respect  have  constantly 
decreased." 

One  of  his  most  intimate  friends  (a  man  unlike 
that  individual  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  was  the 
friend  of  everybody  that  did  not  need  a  friend) 
w..s  Francis  Bennoch,  a  merchant  of  Wood  Street, 
Cheapside,  London,  the  gentleman  to  whom  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  dedicated  the  English  Note-Books. 
Hawthorne's  letters  abounded  in  warm  expressions 
of  affection  for  the  man  whose  noble  hospitality  and 
deep  interest  made  his  residence  in  England  full  of 
happiness.  Bennoch  was  indeed  like  a  brother  to 
him,  sympathizing  warmly  in  all  his  literary  pro 
jects,  and  giving  him  the  benefit  of  his  excellent 
judgment  while  he  was  sojourning  among  strangers. 
Bennoch's  record  may  be  found  in  Tom  Taylor's 
admirable  life  of  poor  Haydon,  the  artist.  All  lit 
erary  and  artistic  people  who  have  had  the  good 
fortune  to  enjoy  his  friendship  have  loved  him.  I 
happen  to  know  of  his  bountiful  kindness  to  Miss 
Mitford  and  Hawthorne  and  poor  old  Jerdan,  for 
these  hospitalities  happened  in  my  time ;  but  he 
began  to  befriend  all  who  needed  friendship  long 
before  I  knew  him.  His  name  ought  never  to  be 
omitted  from  the  literary  annals  of  England;  nor 
that  of  his  wife  either,  for  she  has  always  made  her 
delightful  fireside  warm  and  comforting  to  her  hus 
band's  friends. 


62  HAWTHOBNE. 

Many  and  many  a  happy  time  Bennoch,  Haw 
thorne,  and  myself  have  had  together  on  British 
soil.  I  remember  we  went  once  to  dine  at  a  great 
house  in  the  country,  years  ago,  where  it  was  un 
derstood  there  would  be  no  dinner  speeches.  The 
banquet  was  in  honor  of  some  society,  —  I  have 
quite  forgotten  what,  —  but  it  was  a  jocose  and  not 
a  serious  club.  The  gentleman  who  gave  it,  Sir 
,  was  a  most  kind  and  genial  person,  and  gath 
ered  about  him  on  this  occasion  some  of  the  bright 
est  and  best  from  London.  All  the  way  down  in 
the  train  Hawthorne  was  rejoicing  that  this  was  to 
be  a  dinner  without  speech-making ;  "  for,"  said 
he,  "  nothing  would  tempt  me  to  go  if  toasts  and 
such  confounded  deviltry  were  to  be  the  order  of 
the  day."  So  we  rattled  along,  without  a  fear  of 
any  impending  cloud  of  oratory.  The  entertain 
ment  was  a  most  exquisite  one,  about  twenty  gen 
tlemen  sitting  down  at  the  beautifully  ornamented 
table.  Hawthorne  was  in  uncommonly  good  spir 
its,  and,  having  the  seat  of  honor  at  the  right  of 
his  host,  was  pretty  keenly  scrutinized  by  his  British 
brethren  of  the  quill.  He  had,  of  course,  banished 
all  thought  of  speech-making,  and  his  knees  never 
smote  together  once,  as  he  told  me  afterwards. 
But  it  became  evident  to  my  mind  that  Hawthorne's 
health  was  to  be  proposed  with  all  the  honors.  I 
glanced  at  him  across  the  table,  and  saw  that  he 
wras  unsuspicious  of  any  movement  against  his  quiet 


HAWTHOENE.  63 

serenity.  Suddenly  and  without  warning  our  host 
rapped  the  mahogany,  and  began  a  set  speech  of 
welcome  to  the  "  distinguished  American  romancer." 
It  was  a  very  honest  and  a  very  hearty  speech,  but 
I  dared  not  look  at  Hawthorne.  I  expected  every 
moment  to  see  him  glide  out  of  the  room,  or  sink 
down  out  of  sight  from  his  chair.  The  tortures  I 
suffered  on  Hawthorne's  account,  on  that  occasion, 
I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  now.  I  knew  noth 
ing  would  have  induced  the  shy  man  of  letters  to 
go  down  to  Brighton,  if  he  had  known  he  was  to 
be  spoken  at  in  that  manner.  I  imagined  his  face 
a  deep  crimson,  and  his  hands  trembling  with  ner 
vous  horror;  but  judge  of  iny  surprise,  when  he 
rose  to  reply  with  so  calm  a  voice  and  so  composed 
a  manner,  that,  in  all  my  experience  of  dinner- 
speaking,  I  never  witnessed  such  a  case  of  apparent 

ease.     (Easy-Chair  C himself,  one  of  the  best 

makers  of  after-dinner  or  any  other  speeches  of  our 
day,  according  to  Charles  Dickens,  —  no  inadequate 
judge,  all  will  allow,  —  never  surpassed  in  eloquent 
effect  this  speech  by  Hawthorne.)  There  was  no 
hesitation,  no  sign  of  lack  of  preparation,  but  he 
went  on  for  about  ten  minutes  in  such  a  masterly 
manner,  that  I  declare  it  was  one  of  the  most  suc 
cessful  efforts  of  the  kind  ever  made.  Everybody 
was  delighted,  arid,  when  he  sat  down,  a  wild  and 
unanimous  shout  of  applause  rattled  the  glasses  on 
the  table.  The  meaning  of  his  singular  composure 


64  HAWTHORNE. 

on  that  occasion  I  could  never  get  him  satisfactorily 
to  explain,  and  the  only  remark  I  ever  heard  him 
make,  in  any  way  connected  with  this  marvellous 
exhibition  of  coolness,  was  simply,  "What  a  con 
founded  fool  I  was  to  go  down  to  that  speech-mak 
ing  dinner !  " 

During  all  those  long  years,  while  Hawthorne 
was  absent  in  Europe,  he  was  anything  but  an  idle 
man.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  an  eminently  busy 
one,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  term ;  and  if  his  life 
had  been  prolonged,  the  public  would  have  been  a 
rich  gainer  for  his  residence  abroad.  His  brain 
teemed  with  romances,  and  once  I  remember  he  told 
me  he  had  no  less  than  five  stories,  well  thought 
out,  any  one  of  which  he  could  finish  and  publish 
whenever  he  chose  to.  There  was  one  subject  for 
a  work  of  imagination  that  seems  to  have  haunted 
him  for  years,  and  he  has  mentioned  it  twice  in  his 
journal.  This  was  the  subsequent  life  of  the  young 
man  whom  Jesus,  looking  on,  "  loved,"  and  whom 
he  bade  to  sell  all  that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor, 
and  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  him.  "  Something 
very  deep  arid  beautiful  might  be  made  out  of  this," 
Hawthorne  said,  "  for  the  young  man  went  away 
sorrowful,  and  is  not  recorded  to  have  done  what 
he  was  bidden  to  do." 

One  of  the  most  difficult  matters  he  had  to  man 
age  while  in  England  was  the  publication  of  Miss 
Bacon's  singular  book  on  Shakespeare.  The  poor 


HAWTHORNE.  65 

lady,  after  lie  had  agreed  to  see  the  work  through 
the  press,  broke  off  all  correspondence  with  him  in 
a  storm  of  wrath,  accusing  him  of  pusillanimity  in 
not  avowing  full  faith  in  her  theory  ;  so  that,  as  he 
told  me,  so  far  as  her  good-will  was  concerned,  he 
had  not  gained  much  by  taking  the  responsibility 
of  her  book  upon  his  shoulders.  It  was  a  heavy 
weight  for  him  to  bear  in  more  senses  than  one,  for 
he  paid  out  of  his  own  pocket  the  expenses  of  pub 
lication. 

I  find  in  his  letters  constant  references  to  the 
kindness  with  which  he  was  treated  in  London. 
He  spoke  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall  as  "one  of  the  best 
and  warmest-hearted  women  in  the  world."  Leigh 
Hunt,  in  his  way,  pleased  and  satisfied  him  more 
than  almost  any  man  he  had  seen  in  England. 
"As  for  other  literary  men,"  he  says  in  one  of 
his  letters,  "  I  doubt  whether  London  can  mus 
ter  so  good  a  dinner-party  as  that  which  assem 
bles  every  month  at  the  marble  palace  in  School 
Street." 

All  sorts  of  adventures  befell  him  during  his  stay 
in  Europe,  even  to  that  of  having  his  house  robbed, 
and  his  causing  the  thieves  to  be  tried  and  sentenced 
to  transportation.  In  the  summer-time  he  trav 
elled  about  the  country  in  England  and  pitched 
his  tent  wherever  fancy  prompted.  One  autumn 
afternoon  in  September  |ie  writes,  to,  me  from  Leam 
ington  :  — 


66  HAWTHORNE. 

"  I  received  your  letter  only  this  morning,  at  this  cleanest 
and  prettiest  of  English  towns,  where  we  are  going  to  spend 
a  week  or  two  before  taking  our  departure  for  Paris.  We 
are  acquainted  with  Leamington  already,  having  resided 
here  two  summers  ago ;  and  the  country  round  about  is 
unadulterated  England,  rich  in  old  castles,  manor-houses, 
churches,  and  thatched  cottages,  and  as  green  as  Paiadise 
itself.  I  only  wish  I  had  a  house  here,  and  that  you  could 
come  and  be  my  guest  in  it ;  but  I  am  a  poor  wayside  vaga 
bond,  and  only  find  shelter  for  a  night  or  so,  and  then  trudge 
onward  again.  My  wife  and  children  and  myself  are  famil 
iar  with  all  kinds  of  lodgement  and  modes  of  living,  but  we 
have  forgotten  what  home  is,  —  at  least  the  children  have, 
poor  things  !  I  doubt  whether  they  will  ever  feel  inclined 
to  live  long  in  one  place.  The  worst  of  it  is,  I  have  outgrown 
my  house  in  Concord,  and  feel  no  inclination  to  return  to  it. 

"  We  spent  seven  weeks  in  Manchester,  and  went  most 
diligently  to  the  Art  Exhibition  ;  and  I  really  begin  to  be 
sensible  of  the  rudiments  of  a  taste  in  pictures." 

It  was  during  one  of  his  rambles  with  Alexander 
Ireland  through  the  Manchester  Exhibition  rooms 
that  Hawthorne  saw  Tennyson  wandering  about.  I 
have  always  thought  it  unfortunate  that  these  two 
men  of  genius  could  not  have  been  introduced  on 
that  occasion.  Hawthorne  was  too  shy  to  seek  an 
introduction,  and  Tennyson  was  not  aware  that  the 
American  author  was  present.  Hawthorne  records 
in  his  journal  that  he  gazed  at  Tennyson  with  all 
his  eyes,  "  and  rejoiced  more  in  him  than  in  all  the 
other  wonders  of  the  Exhibition."  When  I  after 
wards  told  Tennyson  that  the  author  whose  "  Twice- 
Told  Tales"  he  happened  to  be  then  reading  at 


HAWTHOKNE.  67 

Farringford  liad  met  him  at  Manchester,  but  did  not 
make  himself  known,  the  Laureate  said  in  his  frank 
and  hearty  manner:  "Why  did  n't  he  come  up  and 
let  me  shake  hands  with  him  ?  I  am  sure  I  should 
have  been  glad  to  meet  a  man  like  Hawthorne  any 
where." 

At  the  close  of  1857  Hawthorne  writes  to  me  that 
he  hears  nothing  of  the  appointment  of  his  suc 
cessor  in  the  consulate,  since  he  had  sent  in  his 
resignation.  "  Somebody  may  turn  up  any  day," 
he  says,  "  with  a  new  commission  in  his  pocket." 
He  was  meanwhile  getting  ready  for  Italy,  and 
he  writes,  "  I  expect  shortly  to  be  released  from 
durance." 

In  his  last  letter  before  leaving  England  fop  the 
Continent  he  says :  — 

"  I  made  up  a  huge  package  the  other  day,  consisting  of 
seven  closely  written  volumes  of  journal,  kept  by  me  since 
my  arrival  in  England,  and  filled  with  sketches  of  places 
and  men  and  manners,  many  of  which  would  doubtless  be 
very  delightful  to  the  public.  I  think  I  shall  seal  them  up, 
with  directions  in  my  will  to  have  them  opened  and  pub 
lished  a  century  hence  ;  and  your  firm  shall  have  the  refusal 
of  them  then. 

"  Remember  me  to  everybody,  for  I  love  all  my  friends  at 
least  as  well  as  ever." 

Released  from  the  cares  of  office,  and  having 
nothing  to  distract  his  attention,  his  life  on  the 
Continent  opened  full  of  delightful  excitement. 
His  pecuniary  situation  was  such  as  to  enable 


68  HAWTHORNE. 

him  to  live  very  comfortably  in  a  country  where, 
at  that  time,  prices  were  moderate. 

In  a  letter  dated  from  a  villa  near  Florence  on 
the  3d  of  September,  1858,  he  thus  describes,  in  a 
charming  manner,  his  way  of  life  in  Italy  :  — 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  stayed  away  too  long,  and  am  for 
gotten  by  everybody.  You  have  piled  up  the  dusty  rem 
nants  of  my  editions,  I  suppose,  in  that  chamber  over  the 
shop,  where  you  once  took  me  to  smoke  a  cigar,  and  have 
crossed  my  name  out  of  your  list  of  authors,  without  so 
much  as  asking  whether  I  am  dead  or  alive.  But  I  like  it 
well  enough,  nevertheless.  It  is  pleasant  to  feel  at  last  that 
I  am  really  away  from  America,  —  a  satisfaction  that  I  never 
enjoyed  as  long  as  I  stayed  in  Liverpool,  where  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  quintessence  of  nasal  and  hand-shaking  Yan- 
keedoni  wras  continually  filtered  and  sublimated  through  my 
consulate,  on  the  way  outward  and  homeward.  I  first  got 
acquainted  with  my  own  countrymen  there.  At  Rome,  too, 
it  was  not  much  better.  But  here  in  Florence,  and  in  the 
summer-time,  and  in  this  secluded  villa,  I  have  escaped  out 
of  all  my  old  tracks,  and  am  really  remote. 

"  I  like  my  present  residence  immensely.  The  house 
stands  on  a  hill,  overlooking  Florence,  and  is  big  enough  to 
quarter  a  regiment ;  insomuch  that  each  member  of  the 
family,  including  servants,  has  a  separate  suite  of  apart 
ments,  and  there  are  vast  wildernesses  of  upper  rooms  into 
which  we  have  never  yet  sent  exploring  expeditions. 

"  At  one  end  of  the  house  there  is  a  moss-grown  tower, 
haunted  by  owls  and  by  the  ghost  of  a  monk,  wrho  was  con 
fined  there  in  the  thirteenth  century,  previous  to  being 
burned  at  the  stake  in  the  principal  square  of  Florence.  I 
hire  this  villa,  tower  and  all,  at  twenty-eight  dollars  a 
month ;  but  I  mean  to  take  it  away  bodily  and  clap  it  into 
a  romance,  which  I  have  in  my  head  ready  to  be  written 
out. 


HAWTHOENE.  69 

"  Speaking  of  romances,  I  have  planned  two,  one  or  both 
of  which  I  could  have  ready  for  the  press  in  a  few  months 
if  I  were  either  in  England  or  America.  But  I  find  this 
Italian  atmosphere  not  favorable  to  the  close  toil  of  compo 
sition,  although  it  is  a  very  good  air  to  dream  in.  I  must 
breathe  the  fogs  of  old  England  or  the  east-winds  of  Massa 
chusetts,  in  order  to  put  me  into  working  trim.  Neverthe 
less,  1  shall  endeavor  to  be  busy  during  the  coming  winter 
at  Rome,  but  there  will  be  so  much  to  distract  my  thoughts 
that  I  have  little  hope  of  seriously  accomplishing  anything. 
It  is  a  pity;  for  I  have  really  a  plethora  of  ideas,  and 
should  feel  relieved  by  discharging  some  of  them  upon  the 
public. 

"  We  shall  continue  here  till  the  end  of  this  month,  and 
shall  then  return  to  Rome,  where  I  have  already  taken  a 
house  for  six  months.  In  the  middle  of  April  we  intend  to 
start  for  home  by  the  way  of  Geneva  and  Paris ;  and,  after 
spending  a  few  weeks  in  England,  shall  embark  for  Boston 
in  July  or  the  beginning  of  August.  After  so  long  an  ab 
sence  (more  than  five  years  already,  which  will  be  six  before 
you  see  me  at  the  old  Corner),  it  is  not  altogether  delightful 
to  think  of  returning.  Everybody  will  be  changed,  and  I 
myself,  no  doubt,  as  much  as  anybody.  Ticknor  and  you, 
I  suppose,  were  both  upset  in  the  late  religious  earthquake, 
and  when  I  inquire  for  you  the  clerks  will  direct  me  to  the 
'Business  Men's  Conference.'  It  won't  do.  I  shall  be 
forced  to  come  back  again  and  take  refuge  in  a  London 
lodging.  London  is  like  the  grave  in  one  respect,  —  any 
man  can  make  himself  at  home  there  ;  and  whenever  a  man 
finds  himself  homeless  elsewhere,  he  had  better  either  die 
or  go  to  London. 

"  Speaking  of  the  grave  reminds  me  of  old  age  and  other 
disagreeable  matters ;  and  I  would  remark  that  one  grows 
old  in  Italy  twice  or  three  times  as  fast  as  in  other  coun 
tries.  I  have  three  gray  hairs  now  for  one  that  I  brought 
from  England,  and  I  shall  look  venerable  indeed  by  next 
summer,  when  I  return. 


70  HAWTHORNE. 

"  Remember  me  affectionately  to  all  my  friends.  Who 
ever  has  a  kindness  for  me  may  be  assured  that  I  have 
twice  as  much  for  him." 

Hawthorne's  second  visit  to  Rome,  in  the  winter 
of  1859,  was  not  a  fortunate  one.  His  own  health 
was  excellent  during  his  sojourn  there,  but  several 
members  of  his  family  fell  ill,  and  he  became  very 
nervous  and  longed  to  get  away.  In  one  of  his 
letters  he  says  :  — • 

"  I  bitterly  detest  Rome,  and  shall  rejoice  to  bid  it  fare 
well  forever ;  and  I  fully  acquiesce  in  all  the  mischief  and 
ruin  that  has  happened  to  it,  from  Nero's  conflagration 
downward.  In  fact,  I  wish  the  very  site  had  been  obliter 
ated  before  I  ever  saw  it." 

He  found  solace,  however,  during  the  series  of 
domestic  troubles  (continued  illness  in  his  family) 
that  befell,  in  writing  memoranda  for  "  The  Marble 
Faun."  He  thus  announces  to  me  the  beginning 
of  the  new  romance  :  — 

"  I  take  some  credit  to  myself  for  having  sternly  shut  my 
self  up  for  an  hour  or  two  almost  every  day,  and  come  to 
close  grips  with  a  romance  which  I  have  been  trying  to  tear 
out  of  my  mind.  As  for  my  success,  I  can't  say  much ;  in 
deed,  I  don't  know  what  to  say  at  all.  I  only  know  that  I 
have  produced  what  seems  to  be  a  larger  amount  of  scribble 
than  either  of  my  former  romances,  and  that  portions  of  it 
interested  me  a  good  deal  while  I  was  writing  them ;  but  I 
have  had  so  many  interruptions,  from  things  to  see  and 
things  to  suffer,  that  the  story  has  developed  itself  in  a  very 
imperfect  way,  and  will  have  to  be  revised  hereafter.  I 
could  finish  it  for  the  press  in  the  time  that  I  am  to  remain 
here  (till  the  15th  of  April),  but  my  brain  is  tired  of  it  just 


HAWTHOENE.  71 

now ;  and,  besides,  there  are  many  objects  that  I  shall  re 
gret  not  seeing  hereafter,  though  I  care  very  little  about 
seeing  them  now ;  so  I  shall  throw  aside  the  romance,  and 
take  it  up  again  next  August  at  The  Wayside." 

He  decided  to  be  back  in  England  early  in  the 
summer,  and  to  sail  for  home  in  July.  He  writes 
to  me  from  Rome :  — 

"  I  shall  go  home,  I  fear,  with  a  heavy  heart,  not  expect 
ing  to  be  very  well  contented  there If  I  were  but 

a  hundred  times  richer  than  I  am,  how  very  comfortable  I 
could  be !  I  consider  it  a  great  piece  of  good  fortune  that 
I  have  had  experience  of  the  discomforts  and  miseries  of 
Italy,  and  did  not  go  directly  home  from  England.  Any 
thing  will  seem  like  Paradise  after  a  Roman  winter. 

"  If  I  had  but  a  house  fit  to  live  in,  I  should  be  greatly 
more  reconciled  to  coming  home ;  but  I  am  really  at  a  loss 
to  imagine  how  we  are  to  squeeze  ourselves  into  that  little 
old  cottage  of  mine.  We  had  outgrown  it  before  we  came 
away,  and  most  of  us  are  twice  as  big  now  as  we  were 
then. 

"  I  have  an  attachment  to  the  place,  and  should  be  sorry 
to  give  it  up ;  but  I  shall  half  ruin  myself  if  I  try  to  enlarge 
the  house,  and  quite  if  I  build  another.  So  what  is  to  be 
done  ?  Pray  have  some  plan  for  me  before  I  get  back ;  not 
that  I  think  you  can  possibly  hit  on  anything  that  will  suit 

me I  shall  return  by  way  of  Venice  and  Geneva, 

spend  two  or  three  weeks  or  more  in  Paris,  and  sail  for 
home,  as  I  said,  in  July.  It  would  be  an  exceeding  delight 
to  me  to  meet  you  or  Ticknor  in  England,  or  anywhere  else. 
At  any  rate,  it  will  cheer  my  heart  to  see  you  all  and  the 
old  Corner  itself,  when  I  touch  my  dear  native  soil  again." 

I  went  abroad  again  in  1859,  and  found  Haw 
thorne  back  in  England,  working  away  diligently 
at  "  The  Marble  Faun."  While  travelling  on  the 


72  HAWTHORNE. 

Continent,  during  the  autumn  I  had  constant  letters 
from  him,  giving  accounts  of  his  progress  on  the 
new  romance.  He  says  :  "I  get  along  more  slowly 

than  I  expected If  I  mistake  not,  it  will 

have  some  good  chapters."  Writing  on  the  10th 
of  October  he  tells  me  :  — 

"  The  romance  is  almost  finished,  a  great  heap  of  manu 
script  being  already  accumulated,  and  only  a  few  concluding 
chapters  remaining  behind.  If  hard  pushed,  I  could  have 
it  ready  for  the  press  in  a  fortnight ;  but  unless  the  pub 
lishers  [Smith  and  Elder  were  to  bring  out  the  work  in 
England]  are  in  a  hurry,  I  shall  be  somewhat  longer  about 
it.  I  have  found  far  more  work  to  do  upon  it  than  I  antici 
pated.  To  confess  the  truth,  I  admire  it  exceedingly  at  in 
tervals,  but  am  liable  to  cold  fits,  during  which  I  think  it 
the  most  infernal  nonsense.  You  ask  for  the  title.  I  have 
not  yet  fixed  upon  one,  but  here  are  some  that  have  occurred 
to  me ;  neither  of  them  exactly  meets  my  idea :  '  Monte 
Beni ;  or,  The  Faun.  A  Romance.'  '  The  Romance  of  a 
Faun.'  '  The  Faun  of  Monte  Beni.5  '  Monte  Beni :  a  Ro 
mance.'  '  Miriam  :  a  Romance.'  '  Hilda :  a  Romance.' 
'  Donatello  :  a  Romance.'  '  The  Faun  :  a  Romance.'  '  Mar 
ble  and  Man :  a  Romance.'  When  you  have  read  the  work 
(which  I  especially  wish  you  to  do  before  it  goes  to  press), 
you  will  be  able  to  select  one  of  them,  or  imagine  something 
better.  There  is  an  objection  in  my  mind  to  an  Italian 
name,  though  perhaps  Monte  Beni  might  do.  Neither  do  I 
wish,  if  I  can  help  it,  to  make  the  fantastic  aspect  of  the 
book  too  prominent  by  putting  the  Faun  into  the  title- 
page. " 

Hawthorne  wrote  so  intensely  on  his  new  story, 
that  he  was  quite  worn  down  before  he  finished  it. 
To  recruit  his  strength  he  went  to  Redcar,  where 


HAWTHO11NE.  75 

the  bracing  air  of  the  German  Ocean  soon  counter- 
anted  the  ill  effect  of  overwork.  "The  Marble 
Faun"  was  in  the  London  printing-office  in  No 
vember,  and  he  seemed  very  glad  to  have  it  off  his 
hands.  His  letters  to  me  at  this  time  (I  was  still 
on  the  Continent)  were  jubilant  with  hope.  He 
was  living  in  Leamington,  and  was  constantly  writ 
ing  to  me  that  I  should  find  the  next  two  months 
more  comfortable  in  England  than  anywhere  else. 
On  the  17th  he  writes  :  — 

"  The  Italian  spring  commences  in  February,  which  is 
certainly  an  advantage,  especially  as  from  February  to  May 
is  the  most  disagreeable  portion  of  the  English  year.  But 
it  is  always  summer  by  a  bright  coal-fire.  We  find  nothing 
to  complain  of  in  the  climate  of  Leamington.  To  be  sure, 
we  cannot  always  see  our  hands  before  us  for  fog ;  but  I 
like  fog,  and  do  not  care  about  seeing  my  hand  before  me. 
We  have  thought  of  staying  here  till  after  Christmas  and 
then  going  somewhere  else,  —  perhaps  to  Bath,  perhaps  to 
Devonshire.  But  all  this  is  uncertain  Leamington  is  not 
so  desirable  a  residence  in  winter  as  in  summer ;  its  great 
charm  consisting  in  the  many  delightful  walks  and  drives, 
and  in  its  neighborhood  to  interesting  places.  I  have  quite 
finished  the  book  (some  time  ago)  and  have  sent  it  to  Smith 
and  Elder,  who  tell  me  it  is  in  the  printer's  hands,  but  I 
have  received  no  proof-sheets.  They  wrote  to  request  an 
other  title  instead  of  the  '  Romance  of  Monte  Beni,'  and  I 
sent  them  their  choice  of  a  dozen.  I  don't  know  what  they 
have  chosen  ;  neither  do  I  understand  their  objection  to  the 
above.  Perhaps  they  don't  like  the  book  at  all ;  but  I  shall 
not  trouble  myself  about  that,  as  long  as  they  publish  it  and 
pay  me  my  £  600.  For  my  part,  I  think  it  much  my  best 
romance ;  but  I  can  see  some  points  where  it  is  open  to 


76  HAWTHORNE. 

assault.   If  it  could  have  appeared  first  in  America,  it  would 

have  been  a  safe  thing 

"  I  mean  to  spend  the  rest  of  my  abode  in  England  in 
blessed  idleness  :  and  as  for  my  journal,  in  the  first  place  I 
have  not  got  it  here  j  secondly,  there  is  nothing  in  it  that 
will  do  to  publish." 


Hawthorne  was,  indeed,  a  consummate  artist,  and 
I  do  not  remember  a  single  slovenly  passage  in  all 
his  acknowledged  writings.  It  was  a  privilege, 
and  one  that  I  can  never  sufficiently  estimate,  to 
have  known  him  personally  through  so  many  years. 
He  was  unlike  any  other  author  I  have  met,  and 
there  were  qualities  in  his  nature  so  sweet  and 
commendable,  that,  through  all  his  shy  reserve, 
they  sometimes  asserted  themselves  in  a  marked 
and  conspicuous  manner.  I  have  known  rude 
people,  who  were  jostling  him  in  a  crowd,  give 
way  at  the  sound  of  his  low  and  almost  irresolute 
voice,  so  potent  was  the  gentle  spell  of  command 
that  seemed  born  of  his  genius. 

Although  he  was  apt  to  keep  aloof  from  his  kind, 
and  did  not  hesitate  frequently  to  announce  by  his 
manner  that 

"  Solitude  to  him 

Was  blithe  society,  who  filled  the  air 
With  gladness  and  involuntary  songs," 

I  ever  found  him,  like  Milton's  Raphael,  an  "  affable  " 
angel,  and  inclined  to  converse  on  whatever  was 
human  and  good  in  life. 


HAWTHORNE.  77 

Here  are  some  more  extracts  from  the  letters 
he  wrote  to  me  while  he  was  engaged  on  "The 
Marhle  Faun."  On  the  llth  of  February,  1860, 
he  writes  from  Leamington  in  England  (I  was  then 
in  Italy)  :  — 

"  I  received  your  letter  from  Florence,  and  conclude  that 
you  are  now  in  Rome,  and  probably  enjoying  the  Carnival, 
—  a  tame  description  of  which,  by  the  by,  I  have  introduced 
into  my  Romance. 

"  I  thank  you  most  heartily  for  your  kind  wishes  in  favor 
of  the  forthcoming  work,  and  sincerely  join  my  own  prayers 
to  yours  in  its  behalf,  but  without  much  confidence  of  a 
good  result.  My  own  opinion  is,  that  I  am  not  really  a 
popular  writer,  and  that  what  popularity  I  have  gained  is 
chiefly  accidental,  and  owing  to  other  causes  than  my  own 
kind  or  degree  of  merit.  Possibly  I  may  (or  may  not)  de 
serve  something  better  than  popularity ;  but  looking  at  all 
my  productions,  and  especially  this  latter  one,  with  a  cold 
or  critical  eye,  I  can  see  that  they  do  not  make  their  appeal 
to  the  popular  mind.  It  is  odd  enough,  moreover,  that  my 
own  individual  taste  is  for  quite  another  class  of  works  than 
those  which  I  myself  am  able  to  write.  If  I  were  to  meet 
with  such  books  as  mine,  by  another  writer,  I  don't  believe 
I  should  be  able  to  get  through  them. 

"  To  return  to  my  own  moon  shiny  Romance  ;  its  fate  will 
soon  be  settled,  for  Smith  and  Elder  mean  to  publish  on  the 
28th  of  this  month.  Poor  Ticknor  will  have  a  tight  scratch 
to  get  his  edition  out  contemporaneously ;  they  having  sent 
him  the  third  volume  only  a  week  ago.  I  think,  however, 
there  will  be  no  danger  of  piracy  in  America.  Perhaps  no 
body  will  think  it  worth  stealing.  Give  my  best  regards  to 
William  Story,  and  look  well  at  his  Cleopatra,  for  you  will 
meet  her  again  in  one  of  the  chapters  which  I  wrote  with 
most  pleasure.  If  he  does  not  find  himself  famous  hence- 


78  HAWTHORNE. 

forth,  the  fault  will  be  none  of  mine.  I,  at  least,  have  done 
my  duty  by  him,  whatever  delinquency  there  may  be  on  the 
part  of  other  critics. 

"  Smith  and  Elder  persist  in  calling  the  book  '  Trans 
formation,'  which  gives  one  the  idea  of  Harlequin  in  a  pan 
tomime  ;  but  I  have  strictly  enjoined  upon  Ticknor  to  call  it 
'  The  Marble  Faun;  a  Romance  of  Monte  Beni.' " 

In  one  of  his  letters  written  at  this  period,  refer 
ring  to  his  design  of  going  home,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  shall  not  have  been  absent  seven  years  till  the  5th  of 
July  next,  and  I  scorn  to  touch  Yankee  soil  sooner  than  that. 
....  As  regards  going  home  I  alternate  between  a  longing 
and  a  dread." 

Returning  to  London  from  the  Continent,  in 
April,  I  found  this  letter,  written  from  Bath, 
awaiting  my  arrival :  — 

"  You  are  welcome  back.  I  really  began  to  fear  that  you 
had  been  assassinated  among  the  Apennines  or  killed  in 
that  outbreak  at  Rome.  I  have  taken  passages  for  all  of  us 
in  the  steamer  which  sails  the  16th  of  June.  Your  berths 
are  Nos.  19  and  20.  I  engaged  them  with  the  understand 
ing  that  you  might  go  earlier  or  later,  if  you  chose;  but  I 
would  advise  you  to  go  on  the  16th;  in  the  first  place,  be 
cause  the  state-rooms  for  our  party  are  the  most  eligible  in 
tbe  ship;  secondly,  because  we  shall  otherwise  mutually 
lose  the  pleasure  of  each  other's  company.  Besides,  I  con 
sider  it  my  duty,  towards  Ticknor  and  towards  Boston,  and 
America  at  large,  to  take  you  into  custody  and  bring  you 
home  ;  for  I  know  you  will  never  come  except  upon  compul 
sion.  Let  me  know  at  once  whether  I  am  to  use  force. 

"  The  book  (The  Marble  F«un)  has  done  better  than  I 
thought  it  would ;  for  you  will  have  discovered,  by  this 
time,  that  it  is  an  audacious  attempt  to  impose  a  tissue  of 


HAWTHOKNE.  79 

absurdities  upon  the  public  by  the  mere  art  of  style  of  nar 
rative.  I  hardly  hoped  that  it  would  go  down  with  John 
Bull ;  but  then  it  is  always  rny  best  point  of  writing,  to  un 
dertake  such  a  task,  and  1  really  pui  what  strength  I  have 
into  many  parts  of  this  book. 

"  The  English  critics  generally  (with  two  or  three  unim 
portant  exceptions)  have  been  sufficiently  favorable,  and  the 
review  in  the  Times  awarded  the  highest  praise  of  all.  At 
home,  too,  the  notices  have  been  very  kind,  so  far  as  they 
have  come  under  my  eye.  Lowell  had  a  good  one  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  and  Hillard  an  excellent  one  in  the  Cou 
rier;  and  yesterday  I  received  a  sheet  of  the  May  number  of 
the  Atlantic  containing  a  really  keen  and  profound  article 
by  Whipple,  in  which  he  goes  over  all  my  works,  and  recog 
nizes  that  element  of  unpopularity  which  (as  nobody  knows 
better  than  myself)  pervades  them  all.  I  agree  with  almost 
all  he  says,  except  that  I  am  conscious  of  not  deserving 
nearly  so  much  praise.  When  I  get  home,  I  will  try  to 
write  a  more  genial  book ;  but  the  Devil  himself  always 
seems  to  get  into  my  inkstand,  and  I  can  only  exorcise  him 
by  pensful  at  a  time. 

"  1  am  coming  to  London  very  soon,  and  mean  to  spend  a 
fortnight  of  next  month  there.  I  have  been  quite  homesick 
through  this  past  dreary  winter.  Bid  you  ever  spend  a  win 
ter  in  England  ?  If  not,  reserve  your  ultimate  conclusion 
about  the  country  until  you  have  done  so." 

"We  met  in  London  early  in  May,  and,  as  our 
lodgings  were  not  far  apart,  we  were  frequently 
together.  I  recall  many  pleasant  dinners  with  him 
and  mutual  friends  in  various  charming  seaside  and 
country-side  places.  We  used  to  take  a  run  down 
to  Greenwich  or  Blackwall  once  or  twice  a  week, 
and  a  trip  to  Richmond  was  always  grateful  to  him. 
Bennoch  was  constantly  planning  a  day's  happi- 


80  HAWTHORNE. 

ness  for  his  friend,  and  the  hours  at  that  pleasant 
season  of  the  year  were  not  long  enough  for  our 
delights.  In  London' we  strolled  along  the  Strand, 
day  after  day,  now  diving  into  Bolt  Court,  in  pur 
suit  of  Johnson's  whereabouts,  and  now  stumbling 
around  the  Temple,  where  Goldsmith  at  one  time 
had  his  quarters.  Hawthorne  was  never  weary  of 
standing  on  London  Bridge,  and  watching  the 
steamers  plying  up  and  down  the  Thames.  I  was 
much  amused  by  his  manner  towards  importunate 
and  sometimes  impudent  beggars,  scores  of  whom 
would  attack  us  even  in  the  shortest  walk.  He  had 
a  mild  way  of  making  a  severe  and  cutting  remark, 
which  used  to  remind  me  of  a  little  incident  which 
Charlotte  Cushman  once  related  to  me.  She  said 
a  man  in  the  gallery  of  a  theatre  (I  think  she  was 
on  the  stage  at  the  time)  made  such  a  disturbance 
that  the  play  could  not  proceed.  Cries  of  "  Throw 
him  over"  arose  from  all  parts  of  the  house,  and 
the  noise  became  furious.  All  was  tumultuous 
chaos  until  a  sweet  and  gentle  female  voice  was 
heard  in  the  pit,  exclaiming,  "  No  !  I  pray  you 
don't  throw  him  over  !  I  beg  of  you,  dear  friends, 
don't  throw  him  over,  but  —  kill  him  where  he  is." 
One  of  our  most  royal  times  was  at  a  parting 
dinner  at  the  house  of  Barry  Cornwall.  Among 
the  notables  present  were  Kinglake  and  Leigh 
Hunt.  Our  kind-hearted  host  and  his  admirable 
wife  greatly  delighted  in  Hawthorne,  and  they 


HAWTH011NE.  81 

made  this  occasion  a  most  grateful  one  to  him.  .1 
remember  when  we  went  up  to  the  drawing-room 
to  join  the  ladies  after  dinner,  the  two  dear  old 
poets,  Leigh  Hunt  and  Bany  Cornwall,  mounted 
the  stairs  with  their  arms  round  each  other  in  a 
very  tender  and  loving  way.  Hawthorne  often 
referred  to  this  scene  as  one  he  would  not  have 
missed  for  a  great  deal. 

His  renewed  intercourse  with  Motley  in  England 
gave  him  peculiar  pleasure,  and  his  genius  found 
an  ardent  admirer  in  the  eminent  historian.  He 
did  not  go  much  into  society  at  that  time,  hut 
there  were  a  few  houses  in  London  where  he  al 
ways  seemed  happy. 

I  met  him  one  night  at  a  great  evening-party, 
looking  on  from  a  nook  a  little  removed  from  the 
full  glare  of  the  soiree.  Soon,  however,  it  was 
whispered  about  that  the  famous  American  ro 
mance-writer  was  in  the  room,  and  an  enthusiastic 
English  lady,  a  genuine  admirer  and  intelligent 
reader  of  his  books,  ran  for  her  album  and  attacked 
him  for  "  a  few  words  and  his  name  at  the  end." 
He  looked  dismally  perplexed,  and  turning  to  me 
said  imploringly  in  a  whisper,  "  For  pity's  sake, 
what  shall  I  write  ?  I  can't  think  of  a  word  to 
add  to  my  name.  Help  me  to  something."  Think 
ing  him  partly  in  fun,  I  said,  "  Write  an  original 
couplet,  —  this  one,  for  instance,  — 

'When  this  you  see, 
Remember  me,'  " 


82  HAWTHOENE. 

and  to  iny  amazement  he  stepped  forward  at  once 
to  the  table,  wrote  the  foolish  lines  I  had  sug 
gested,  and,  shutting  the  book,  handed  it  very  con 
tentedly  to  the  happy  lady. 

"We  sailed  from  England  together  in  the  month 
of  June,  as  we  had  previously  arranged,  and  our 
voyage  home  was,  to  say  the  least,  an  unusual  one. 
We  had  calm  summer,  moonlight  weather,  with  no 
storms.  Mrs.  Stowe  was  on  board,  and  in  her  own 
cheery  and  delightful  way  she  enlivened  the  pas 
sage  with  some  capital  stories  of  her  early  life. 

When  we  arrived  at  Queen stown,  the  captain  an 
nounced  to  us  that,  as  the  ship  would  wait  there 
six  hours,  we  might  go  ashore  and  see  something 
of  our  Irish  friends.  So  we  chartered  several  jaunt 
ing-cars,  after  much  tribulation  and  delay  in  ar 
ranging  terms  with  the  drivers  thereof,  and  started 
off  on  a  merry  exploring  expedition.  I  remember 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  racing  up  and  down  the 
hills  of  Queenstown,  much  shouting  and  laughing, 
and  crowds  of  beggars  howling  after  us  for  pence 
and  beer.  The  Irish  jaunting-car  is  a  peculiar 
institution,  and  we  all  sat  with  our  legs  dangling 
over  the  road  in  a  "  dim  and  perilous  way."  Oc 
casionally  a  horse  would  give  out,  for  the  animals 
were  sad  specimens,  poorly  fed  and  wofully  driven. 
We  were  almost  devoured  by  the  ragamuffins  that 
ran  beside  our  wheels,  and  I  remember  the  "  sad 
civility"  with  which  Hawthorne  regarded  their 


HAWTHORNE.  83 

clamors.  We  had  provided  ourselves  before  start 
ing  with  much  small  coin,  which,  however,  gave  out 
during  our  first  mile.  Hawthorne  attempted  to 
explain  our  inability  further  to  supply  their  demands, 
having,  as  he  said  to  them,  nothing  less  than  a  sov 
ereign  in  his  pocket,  when  a  voice  from  the  crowd 
shouted,  "  Bedad,  your  honor,  I  can  change  that 
for  ye  "  ;  and  the  knave  actually  did  it  on  the  spot. 
Hawthorne's  love  for  the  sea  amounted  to  a 
passionate  worship ;  and  while  I  (the  worst  sailor 
probably  on  this  planet)  was  longing,  spite  of  the 
good  company  on  board,  to  reach  land  as  soon  as 
possible,  Hawthorne  was  constantly  saying  in  his 
quiet,  earnest  way,  "  I  should  like  to  sail  on  and 
on  forever,  and  never  touch  the  shore  again."  He 
liked  to  stand  alone  in  the  bows  of  the  ship  and  see 
the  sun  go  down,  and  he  was  never  tired  of  walk 
ing  the  deck  at  midnight.  I  used  to  watch  his 
dark,  solitary  figure  under  the  stars,  pacing  up  and 
down  some  unfrequented  part  of  the  vessel,  musing 
and  half  melancholy.  Sometimes  he  would  lie 
down  beside  me  and  commiserate  my  unquiet  con 
dition.  Sea-sickness,  he  declared,  he  could  not  un 
derstand,  and  was  constantly  recommending  most 
extraordinary  dishes  and  drinks,  "  all  made  out  of 
the  artist's  brain,"  which  he  said  were  sovereign 
remedies  for  nautical  illness.  I  remember  to  this 
day  some  of  the  preparations  which,  in  his  revelry 
of  fancy,  he  would  advise  me  to  take,  a  farrago  of 


84  HAWTHORNE. 

good  things  almost  rivalling  "  Oberon's  "Feast," 
spread  out  so  daintily  in  Herrick's  "  Hesperides." 
He  thought,  at  first,  if  I  could  bear  a  few  roc's 
eggs  beaten  up  by  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back, 
1  might  be  benefited.  He  decided  that  a  gruel 
made  from  a  sheaf  of  Robin  Hood's  arrows  would 
be  strengthening.  \Vhen  suffering  pain,  "  a  right 
gude  willie- waught,"  or  a  stiff  cup  of  hemlock  of 
the  Socrates  brand,  before  retiring,  he  considered 
very  good.  He  said  he  had  heard  recommended  a 
dose  of  salts  distilled  from  the  tears  of  Niobe,  but 
he  did  n't  approve  of  that  remedy.  He  observed 
that  he  had  a  high  opinion  of  hearty  food,  such  as 
potted  owl  with  Minerva  sauce,  airy  tongues  of 
sirens,  stewed  ibis,  livers  of  Roman  Capitol  geese, 
the  wings  of  a  Phoenix  not  too  much  done,  love 
lorn  nightingales  cooked  briskly  over  Aladdin's 
lamp,  chicken -pies  made  of  fowls  raised  by  Mrs. 
Carey,  Nautilus  chowder,  and  the  like.  Fruit,  by 
all  means,  should  always  be  taken  by  an  uneasy 
victim  at  sea,  especially  Atalanta  pippins  and 
purple  grapes  raised  by  Bacchus  &  Co.  Examin 
ing  my  garments  one  day  as  I  lay  on  deck,  he 
thought  I  was  not  warmly  enough  clad,  and  he 
recommended,  before  I  took  another  voyage,  that 
I  should  fit  myself  out  in  Liverpool  with  a  good 
warm  shirt  from  the  shop  of  Nessus  &  Co.  in 
Bold  Street,  where  I  could  also  find  stout  seven- 
league  boots  to  keep  out  the  damp.  He  knew 


HAWTHORNE.  85 

another  shop,  he  said,  where  I  could  buy  raven - 
down  stockings,  and  sable  clouds  with  a  silver  lin 
ing,  most  warm  and  comfortable  for  a  sea  voyage. 

His  own  appetite  was  excellent,  and  day  after  day 
he  used  to  come  on  deck  after  dinner  and  describe 
to  me  what  he  had  eaten.  Of  course  his  accounts 
were  always  exaggerations,  for  my  amusement.  I 
remember  one  night  he  gave  me  a  running  cata 
logue  of  what  food  he  had  partaken  during  the 
day,  and  the  sum  total  was  convulsing  from  its  ab 
surdity.  Among  the  viands  he  had  consumed,  I 
remember  he  stated  there  were  "  several  yards  of 
steak,"  and  a  "whole  warrenful  of  Welsh  rabbits." 
The  "divine  spirit  of  Humor"  was  upon  him  dur 
ing  many  of  those  days  at  sea,  and  he  revelled  in  it 
like  a  careless  child. 

That  was  a  voyage,  indeed,  long  to  be  remem 
bered,  and  I  shall  ever  look  back  upon  it  as  the 
most  satisfactory  "sea  turn"  I  ever  happened  to 
experience.  I  have  sailed  many  a  weary,  watery 
mile  since  then,  but  Hawthorne  was  not  on  board !  " 

The  summer  after  his  arrival  home  he  spent 
quietly  in  Concord,  at  the  Wayside,  and  illness  in 
his  family  made  him  at  times  unusually  sad.  In 
one  of  his  notes  to  me  he  says :  — 

"I  am  continually  reminded  nowadays  of  a  response 
which  I  once  heard  a  drunken  sailor  make  to  a  pious  gen 
tleman,  who  asked  him  how  he  felt,  '  Pretty  d— d  miserable, 
thank  God ! '  It  very  well  expresses  my  thorough  discom 
fort  and  forced  acquiescence." 


86  HAWTHORNE. 

Occasionally  he  wrote  requesting  me  to  make  a 
change,  here  and  there,  in  the  new  edition  of  his 
works  then  passing  through  the  press.  On  the 
23d  of  September,  1860,  he  writes :- 

"  Please  to  append  the  following  note  to  the  foot  of  the 
page,  at  the  commencement  of  the  story  called  '  Dr.  Heideg 
ger's  Experiment,'  in  the  '  Twice-Told  Tales  ' :  '  In  an  Eng 
lish  Review,  not  long  since,  I  have  been  accused  of  plagiariz 
ing  the  idea  of  this  story  from  a  chapter  in  one  of  the  novels 
of  Alexandre  Dumas.  There  has  undoubtedly  been  a  pla 
giarism,  on  one  side  or  the  other;  but  as  my  story  was 
written  a  good  deal  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  and  as  the 
novel  is  of  considerably  more  recent  date,  I  take  pleasure  in 
thinking  that  M.  Dumas  has  done  me  the  honor  to  appro 
priate  one  of  the  fanciful  conceptions  of  my  earlier  days, 
lie  is  heartily  welcome  to  it ;  nor  is  it  the  only  instance,  by 
many,  in  which  the  great  French  romancer  has  exercised 
the  privilege  of  commanding  genius  by  confiscating  the  in 
tellectual  property  of  less  famous  people  to  his  own  use  and 
behoof.' " 

Hawthorne  was  a  diligent  reader  of  the  Bible, 
and  when  sometimes,  in  my  ignorant  way,  I  would 
question,  in  a  proof-sheet,  his  use  of  a  word,  he 
would  almost  always  refer  me  to  the  Bible  as  his 
authority.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  hear  him 
talk  about  the  Book  of  Job,  and  his  voice  would  be 
tremulous  with  feeling,  as  he  sometimes  quoted  a 
touching  passage  from  the  New  Testament.  In 
one  of  his  letters  he  says  to  me :  — 

"  Did  not  I  suggest  to  you,  last  summer,  the  publication 
of  the  Bible  in  ten  or  twelve  12mo  volumes  ?  I  think  it 
would  have  great  success,  and,  at  least  (but,  as  a  publisher, 


HAWTHORNE.  87 

I  suppose  this  is  the  very  smallest  of  your  cares),  it  would 
result  in  the  salvation  of  a  great  many  souls,  who  will  never 
find  their  way  to  heaven,  if  left  to  learn  it  from  the  incon 
venient  editions  of  the  Scriptures  now  in  use.  It  is  very 
singular  that  this  form  of  publishing  the  Bible  in  a  single 
bulky  or  closely  printed  volume  should  be  so  long  contin 
ued.  It  was  first  adopted,  I  suppose,  as  being  the  universal 
mode  of  publication  at  the  time  when  the  Bible  was  trans 
lated.  Shakespeare,  and  the  other  old  dramatists  and  poets, 
were  first  published  in  the  same  form  ;  but  all  of  them  have 
long  since  been  broken  into  dozens  and  scores  of  portable 
and  readable  volumes ;  and  why  not  the  Bible?  " 

During  this  period,  after  his  return  from  Europe, 
I  saw  him  frequently  at  the  Wayside,  in  Concord. 
He  now  seemed  happy  in  the  dwelling  he  had  put 
in  order  for  the  calm  and  comfort  of  his  middle 
and  later  life.  He  had  added  a  tower  to  his  house, 
in  which  he  could  be  safe  from  intrusion,  and  where 
he  could  muse  arid  write.  Never  was  poet  or  ro 
mancer  more  fitly  shrined.  Druinmond  at  Haw- 
thornden,  Scott  at  Abbotsford,  Dickens  at  Gad's 
Hill,  Irving  at  Siumyside,  were  not  more  appro 
priately  sheltered.  Shut  up  in  his  tower,  he  could 
escape  from  the  tumult  of  life,  and  be  alone  with 
only  the  birds  and  the  bees  in  concert  outside  his 
casement.  The  view  from  this  apartment,  on  every 
side,  was  lovely,  and  Hawthorne  enjoyed  the  charm 
ing  prospect  as  I  have  known  few  men  to  enjoy 
nature. 

His  favorite  walk  lay  near  his  house,  —  indeed  it 
was  part  of  his  own  grounds,  —  a  little  hillside, 


88  HAWTHORNE. 

where  he  had  worn  a  foot-path,  and  where  he  might 
he  found  in  good  weather,  when  not  employed  in 
the  tower.  While  walking  to  and  fro  on  this  hit 
of  rising  ground  he  meditated  and  composed  innu 
merable  romances  that  were  never  written,  as  well 
as  some  that  were.  Here  he  first  announced  to  me 
his  plan  of  "The  Dolliver  Romance,"  and,  from 
what  he  told  me  of  his  design  of  the  story  as  it 
existed  in  his  mind,  I  thought  it  would  have  been 
the  greatest  of  his  books.  An' enchanting  memory 
is  left  of  that  morning  when  he  laid  out  the  whole 
story  before  me  as  he  intended  to  write  it.  The 
plot  was  a  grand  one,  and  I  tried  to  tell  him  how 
much  I  was  impressed  by  it.  Very  soon  after  our 
interview,  he  wrote  to  me  :  — 

"  In  compliance  with  your  exhortations,  I  have  begun  to 
think  seriously  of  that  story,  not,  as  yet,  with  a  pen  in  my 

hand,  but  trudging  to  and  fro  on  my  hill-top I  don't 

mean  to  let  you  see  the  first  chapters  till  I  have  written  the 
final  sentence  of  the  story.  Indeed,  the  first  chapters  of  a 

story  ought  always  to  be  the  last  written If  you 

want  me  to  write  a  good  book,  send  me  a  good  pen ;  not  a 
gold  one,  for  they  seldom  suit  me ;  but  a  pen  flexible  and 
capacious  of  ink,  and  that  will  not  grow  stiff  and  rheumatic 
the  moment  1  get  attached  to  it.  I  never  met  with  a  good 
pen  in  my  life." 

Time  went  on,  the  war  broke  out,  and  he  had  not 
the  heart  to  go  on  with  his  new  Romance.  During 
the  month  of  April,  1862,  he  made  a  visit  to  Wash 
ington  with  his  friend  Ticknor,  to  whom  he  was 
greatly  attached.  While  on  this  visit  to  the  capital 


HAWTHORNE.  91 

he  sat  to  Leutze  for  a  portrait.  He  took  a  special 
fancy  to  the  artist,  and,  while  he  was  sitting  to  him, 
wrote  a  long  letter  to  me.  Here  is  an  extract  from 
it:  — 

"  I  stay  here  only  while  Leutze  finishes  a  portrait,  which 
I  think  will  be  the  best  ever  painted  of  the  same  unworthy 
subject.  One  charm  it  must  needs  have,  —  an  aspect  of 
immortal  jollity  and  well-to-do-ness ;  for  Leutze,  when  the 
sitting  begins,  gives  me  a  first-rate  cigar,  and  when  he  sees 
me  getting  tired,  he  brings  out  a  bottle  of  splendid  cham 
pagne  ;  and  we  quaffed  and  smoked  yesterday,  in  a  blessed 
state  of  mutual  good-will,  for  three  hours  and  a  half,  during 
which  the  picture  made  a  really  miraculous  progress.  Leutze 
is  the  best  of  fellows." 

In  the  same  letter  he  thus  describes  the  sinking 
of  the  Cumberland,  and  I  know  of  nothing  finer  in 
its  way :  — 

"  I  see  in  a  newspaper  that  Holmes  is  going  to  write  a 
song  on  the  sinking  of  the  Cumberland ;  and  feeling  it  to  be 
a  subject  of  national  importance,  it  occurs  to  me  that  he 
might  like  to  know  her  present  condition.  She  lies  with  her 
three  masts  sticking  up  out  of  the  water,  and  careened  over, 
the  water  being  nearly  on  a  level  with  her  maintop,— I 
mean  that  first  landing-place  from  the  deck  of  the  vessel, 
after  climbing  the  shrouds.  The  rigging  does  not  appear  at 
all  damaged.  There  is  a  tattered  bit  of  a  pennant,  about  a 
foot  and  a  half  long,  fluttering  from  the  tip-top  of  one  of  the 
masts ;  but  the  flag,  the  ensign  of  the  ship  (which  never 
was  struck,  thank  God),  is  under  water,  so  as  to  be  quite 
invisible,  being  attached  to  the  gaif,  I  think  they  call  it,  of 
the  mizzen-mast ;  and  though  this  bald  description  makes 
nothing  of  it,  I  never  saw  anything  so  gloriously  forlorn  as 
those  three  masts.  I  did  not  think  it  was  in  me  to  be  so 


92  HAWTHORNE. 

moved  by  any  spectacle  of  the  kind.  Bodies  still  occasion 
ally  float  up  from  it.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  says  she 
shall  lie  there  till  she  goes  to  pieces,  but  I  suppose  by  and 
by  they  will  sell  her  to  some  Yankee  for  the  value  of  her  old 
iron. 

"  P.  S.  My  hair  really  is  not  so  white  as  this  photograph, 
which  I  enclose,  makes  me.  The  sun  seems  to  take  an  in 
fernal  pleasure  in  making  me  venerable,  —  as  if  I  were  as 
old  as  himself." 

Hawthorne  has  rested  so  long  in  the  twilight  of 
impersonality,  that  I  hesitate  sometimes  to  reveal 
the  man  even  to  his  warmest  admirers.  This  very 
day  Sainte-Beuve  has  made  me  feel  a  fresh  reluc 
tance  in  unveiling  my  friend,  and  there  seems  almost 
a  reproof  in  these  words,  from  the  eloquent  French 
author :  — 

"  We  know  nothing  or  nearly  nothing  of  the  life  of  La 
Bruyere,  and  this  obscurity  adds,  it  has  been  remarked,  to 
the  effect  of  his  work,  and,  it  may  be  said,  to  the  piquant 
happiness  of  his  destiny.  If  there  was  not  a  single  line  of 
his  unique  book,  which  from  the  first  instant  of  its  publica 
tion  did  not  appear  and  remain  in  the  clear  light,  so,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  .was  not  one  individual  detail  regarding 
the  author  which  was  well  known.  Every  ray  of  the  cen 
tury  fell  upon  each  page  of  the  book,  and  the  face  of  the 
man  who  held  it  open  in  his  hand  was  veiled  from  our 
sight." 

Beautifully  said,  as  usual  with  Sainte-Beuve,  hut 
I  venture,  notwithstanding  such  eloquent  warning, 
to  proceed. 

After  his  return  home  from  "Washington,  Haw- 


HAWTHORNE.  93 

thorn e  sent  to  me,  during  the  month  of  May,  an 
article  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  which  he  entitled 
"  Chiefly  about  War-Matters."  The  paper,  excel 
lently  well  done  throughout,  of  course,  contained  a 
personal  description  of  President  Lincoln,  which  I 
thought,  considered  as  a  portrait  of  a  living  man, 
and  drawn  by  Hawthorne,  it  would  not  be  wise  or 
tasteful  to  print.  The  office  of  an  editor  is  a  dis 
agreeable  one  sometimes,  and  the  case  of  Hawthorne 
on  Lincoln  disturbed  me  not  a  little.  After  reading 
the  manuscript,  I  wrote  to  the  author,  and  asked 
his  permission  to  omit  his  description  of  the  Presi 
dent's  personal  appearance.  As  usual,  — for  he  was 
the  kindest  and  sweetest  of  contributors,  the  most 
good-natured  and  the  most  amenable  man  to  advise 
I  ever  knew,  —  he  consented  to  my  proposal,  and 
allowed  me  to  print  the  article  with  the  alterations. 
If  any  one  will  turn  to  the  paper  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  (it  is  in  the  number  for  July,  1862),  it 
will  be  observed  there  are  several  notes ;  all  of 
these  were  written  by  Hawthorne  himself.  He 
complied  with  my  request  without  a  murmur,  but 
he  always  thought  I  was  wrong  in  my  decision. 
He  said  the  whole  description  of  the  interview  and 
the  President's  personal  appearance  were,  to  his 
mind,  the  only  parts  of  the  article  worth  publish 
ing.  "What  a  terrible  thing,"  he  complained, 
"it  is  to  try  to  let  off  a  little  bit  of  truth  into  this 
miserable  humbug  of  a  world!"  President  Lin- 


94  HAWTHORNE. 

coin  is  dead,  and  as  Hawthorne  once  wrote  to  me, 
"  Upon  my  honor,  it  seems  to  me  the  passage 
omitted  has  an  historical  value/'  I  will  copy  here 
verbatim  what  I  advised  my  friend,  both  on  his 
own  account  and  the  President's,  not  to  print  nine 
years  ago.  Hawthorne  and  his  party  had  gone  into 
the  President's  room,  annexed,  as  he  says,  as  super 
numeraries  to  a  deputation  from  a  Massachusetts 
whip -factory,  with  a  present  of  a  splendid  whip  to 
the  Chief  Magistrate  :  — 

"  By  and  by  there  was  a  little  stir  on  the  staircase  and  in 
the  passageway,  and  in  lounged  a  tall,  loose-jointed  figure, 
of  an  exaggerated  Yankee  port  and  demeanor,  whom  (as 
being  about  the  homeliest  man  I  ever  saw,  yet  by  no  means 
repulsive  or  disagreeable)  it  was  impossible  not  to  recog 
nize  as  Uncle  Abe. 

"  Unquestionably,  "Western  man  though  he  be,  and  Ken- 
tuckian  by  birth,  President  Lincoln  is  the  essential  repre 
sentative  of  all  Yankees,  and  the  veritable  specimen,  physi 
cally,  of  what  the  world  seems  determined  to  regard  as  our 
characteristic  qualities.  It  is  the  strangest  and  yet  the 
fittest  thing  in  the  jumble  of  human  vicissitudes,  that  he, 
out  of  so  many  millions,  unlocked  for,  unselected  by  any 
intelligible  process  that  could  be  based  upon  his  genuine 
qualities,  unknown  to  those  who  chose  him,  and  unsus 
pected  of  what  endowments  may  adapt  him  for  his  tre 
mendous  responsibility,  should  have  found  the  way  open 
for  him  to  fling  his  lank  personality  into  the  chair  of  state, 
—  where,  I  presume,  it  was  his  first  impulse  to  throw  his 
legs  on  the  council-table,  and  tell  the  Cabinet  Ministers  a 
story.  There  is  no  describing  his  lengthy  awkwardness, 
nor  the  uncouthness  of  his  movement ;  and  yet  it  seemed 
as  if  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  him  daily,  and  had 
shaken  hands  with  him  a  thousand  times  in  some  village 


HAWTHORNE.  95 

street ;  so  true  was  he  to  the  aspect  of  the  pattern  Ameri 
can,  though  with  a  certain  extravagance  which,  possibly,  I 
exaggerated  still  further  by  the  delighted  eagerness  with 
which  I  took  it  in.  If  put  to  guess  his  calling  and  liveli 
hood,  I  should  have  taken  him  for  a  country  schoolmaster 
as  soon  as  anything  else.  He  was  dressed  in  a  rusty  black 
frock-coat  and  pantaloons,  unbrushed,  and  worn  so  faith 
fully  that  the  suit  had  adapted  itself  to  the  curves  and 
angularities  of  his  figure,  and  had  grown  to  be  an  outer 
skin  of  the  man.  He  had  shabby  slippers  on  his  feet.  His 
hair  was  black,  still  unmixed  with  gray,  stiif,  somewhat 
bushy,  and  had  apparently  been  acquainted  with  neither 
brush  nor  comb  that  morning,  after  the  disarrangement  of 
the  pillow ;  and  as  to  a  nightcap,  Uncle  Abe  probably  knows 
nothing  of  such  effeminacies.  His  complexion  is  dark  and 
sallow,  betokening,  I  fear,  an  insalubrious  atmosphere 
around  the  White  House ;  he  has  thick  black  eyebrows  and 
an  impending  brow ;  his  nose  is  large,  and  the  lines  about 
his  mouth  are  very  strongly  denned. 

"  The  whole  physiognomy  is  as  coarse  a  one  as  you  would 
meet  anywhere  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  States ; 
but,  withal,  it  is  redeemed,  illuminated,  softened,  and 
brightened  by  a  kindly  though  serious  look  out  of  his  eyes, 
and  an  expression  of  homely  sagacity,  that  seems  weighted 
with  rich  results  of  village  experience.  A  great  deal  of 
native  sense ;  no  bookish  cultivation,  no  refinement ;  honest 
at  heart,  and  thoroughly  so,  and  yet  in  some  sort,  sly,  — at 
least,  endowed  with  a  sort  of  tact  and  wisdom  that  are  akin 
to  craft,  and  would  impel  him,  I  think,  to  take  an  antago 
nist  in  flank,  rather  than  to  make  a  bull-run  at  him  right  in 
front.  But,  on  the  whole,  I  like  this  sallow,  queer,  saga 
cious  visage,  with  the  homely  human  sympathies  that 
warmed  it ;  and,  for  my  small  share  in  the  matter,  would 
as  lief  have  Uncle  Abe  for  a  ruler  as  any  man  whom  it 
would  have  been  practicable  to  put  in  his  place. 

"  Immediately  on  his  entrance  the  President  accosted  our 
member  of  Congress,  who  had  us  in  charge,  and,  with  a 


96  IIAWTHOENE. 

comical  twist  of  his  face,  made  some  jocular  remark  about 
the  length  of  his  breakfast.  He  then  greeted  us  all  round, 
not  waiting  for  an  introduction,  but  shaking  and  squeezing 
everybody's  hand  with  the  utmost  cordiality,  whether  the 
individual's  name  was  announced  to  him  or  not.  His  man 
ner  towards  us  was  wholly  without  pretence,  but  yet  had 
a  kind  of  natural  dignity,  quite  sufficient  to  keep  the  for- 
wardest  of  us  from  clapping  him  on  the  shoulder  and  asking 
for  a  story.  A  mutual  acquaintance  being  established,  our 
leader  took  the  whip  out  of  its  case,  and  began  to  read  the 
address  of  presentation.  The  whip  was  an  exceedingly 
long  one,  its  handle  wrought  in  ivory  (by  some  artist  in  the 
Massachusetts  State  Prison,  I  believe),  and  ornamented 
with  a  medallion  of  the  President,  and  other  equally  beau 
tiful  devices ;  and  along  its  whole  length  there  was  a  suc 
cession  of  golden  bands  and  ferrules.  The  address  was 
shorter  than  the  whip,  but  equally  well  made,  consisting 
chiefly  of  an  explanatory  description  of  these  artistic  de 
signs,  and  closing  with  a  hint  that  the  gift  was  a  suggestive 
and  emblematic  one,  and  that  the  President  would  recog 
nize  the  use  to  which  such  an  instrument  should  be  put. 

"  This  suggestion  gave  Uncle  Abe  rather  a  delicate  task 
in  his  reply,  because,  slight  as  the  matter  seemed,  it  ap 
parently  called  for  some  declaration,  or  intimation,  or  faint 
foreshadowing  of  policy  in  reference  to  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  and  the  final  treatment  of  the  Rebels.  But  the  Presi 
dent's  Yankee  aptness  and  not-to-be-caught-ness  stood  him 
in  good  stead,  and  he  jerked  or  wiggled  himself  out  of  the 
dilemma  with  an  uncouth  derterity  that  was  entirely  in 
character ;  although,  without  his  gesticulation  of  eye  and 
mouth,  —  and  especially  the  flourish  of  the  \vhip,  with  which 
he  imagined  himself  touching  up  a  pair  of  fat  horses, —  I 
doubt  whether  his  words  would  be  worth  recording,  even 
if  I  could  remember  them.  The  gist  of  the  reply  was,  that 
he  accepted  the  whip  as  an  emblem  of  peace,  not  punish 
ment;  and,  this  great  affair  over,  we  retired  out  of  the 
presence  in  high  good-humor,  only  regretting  that  we  could 


HAWTHORNE.  97 

not  have  seen  the  President  sit  down  and  fold  up  his  legs 
(which  is  said  to  be  a  most  extraordinary  spectacle),  or  have 
heard  him  tell  one  of  those  delectable  stories  for  which  lie 
is  so  celebrated.  A  good  many  of  them  are  afloat  upon  the 
common  talk  of  Washington,  and  are  certainly  the  aptest, 
pitliiest,  and  funniest  little  things  imaginable;  though,  to 
be  sure,  they  smack  of  the  frontier  freedom,  and  would  not 
always  bear  repetition  in  a  drawing-room,  or  on  the  im 
maculate  page  of  the  Atlantic." 

So  runs  the  passage  which  caused  some  good- 
natured  discussion  nine  years  ago,  between  the  con 
tributor  and  the  editor.  Perhaps  I  was  squeamish 
not  to  have  been  willing  to  print  this  matter  at 
that  time.  Some  persons,  no  doubt,  will  adopt  that 
opinion,  but  as  both  President  and  author  have  long 
ago  met  on  the  other  side  of  criticism  and  maga 
zines,  we  will  leave  the  subject  to  their  decision, 
they  being  most  interested  in  the  transaction.  I 
did  what  seemed  best  in  1862.  In  1871  "circum 
stances  have  changed "  with  both  parties,  and  I 
venture  to-day  what  I  hardly  dared  then. 


Whenever  I  look  at  Hawthorne's  portrait,  and 
that  is  pretty  often,  some  new  trait  or  anecdote  or 
reminiscence  comes  up  and  clamors  to  be  made 
known  to  those  who  feel  an  interest  in  it.  But 
time  and  eternity  call  loudly  for  mortal  gossip 
to  be  brief,  and  I  must  hasten  to  my  last  session 
over  that  child  of  genius,  who  first  saw  the  light  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1804. 
4 


98  HAWTHORNE. 

One  of  his  favorite  books  was  Lockhart's  Life 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  in  1862  I  dedicated  to 
him  the  Household  Edition  of  that  work.  When 
he  received  the  first  volume,  he  wrote  to  me  a  letter 
of  which  I  am  so  proud  that  I  keep  it  among  my 
best  treasures. 

"  I  am  exceedingly  gratified  by  the  dedication.  I  do  not 
deserve  so  high  an  honor ;  but  if  you  think  me  worthy,  it 
is  enough  to  make  the  compliment  in  the  highest  degree 
acceptable,  no  matter  who  may  dispute  my  title  to  it.  I 
care  more  for  your  good  opinion  than  for  that  of  a  host  of 
critics,  and  have  an  excellent  reason  for  so  doing;  inas 
much  as  my  literary  success,  whatever  it  has  been  or  may 
be,  is  the  result  of  my  connection  with  you.  Somehow  or 
other  you  smote  the  rock  of  public  sympathy  on  my  behalf, 
and  a  stream  gushed  forth  in  sufficient  quantity  to  quench 
my  thirst  though  not  to  drown  me.  I  think  no  author  can 
ever  have  had  publisher  that  he  valued  so  much  as  I  do 
mine." 

He  began  in  1862  to  send  me  some  articles  from 
his  English  Journal  for  the  Atlantic  magazine,  which 
he  afterwards  collected  into  a  volume  and  called 
"  Our  Old  Home."  On  forwarding  one  for  Decem 
ber  of  that  year  he  says  :  — 

"  I  hope  you  will  like  it,  for  the  subject  seemed  interest 
ing  !  to  me  when  I  was  on  the  spot,  but  I  always  feel  a 
singular  despondency  and  heaviness  of  heart  in  reopening 
those  old  journals  now.  However,  if  I  can  make  readable 
sketches  out  of  them,  it  is  no  matter." 

In  the  same  letter  he  tells  me  he  has  been  re 
reading  Scott's  Life,  and  he  suggests  some  additions 
to  the  concluding  volume.  He  says  :  — • 


HAWTHORNE.  99 

"If  the  last  volume  is  not  already  printed  and  stereo 
typed,  I  think  you  ought  to  insert  in  it  an  explanation  of 
all  that  is  left  mysterious  in  the  former  volumes,  —  the 
name  and  family  of  the  lady  he  was  in  love  with,  etc.  It 
is  desirable,  too,  to  know  what  have  been  the  fortunes  and 
final  catastrophes  of  his  family  and  intimate  friends  since 
his  death,  down  to  as  recent  a  period  as  the  death  of  Lock- 
hart.  All  such  matter  would  make  your  edition  more 
valuable;  and  I  see  no  reason  why  you  should  be  bound 
by  the  deference  to  living  connections  of  the  family  that 
may  prevent  the  English  publishers  from  inserting  these 
particulars.  We  stand  in  the  light  of  posterity  to  them, 

and  have   the  privileges  of  posterity I  should  be 

glad  to  know  something  of  the  personal  character  and  life 
of  his  eldest  son,  and  whether  (as  I  have  heard)  he  was 
ashamed  of  his  father  for  being  a  literary  man.  In  short, 
fifty  pages  devoted  to  such  elucidation  would  make  the 
edition  unique.  Do  come  and  see  us  before  the  leaves 
fall." 

While  he  was  engaged  in  copying  out  and  re 
writing  his  papers  on  England  for  the  magazine  he 
was  despondent  about  their  reception  by  the  public. 
Speaking  of  them,  one  day,  to  me,  he  said :  "  We 
must  remember  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  intel 
lectual  ice  mingled  with  this  wine  of  memory." 
He  was  sometimes  so  dispirited  during  the  war  that 
he  was  obliged  to  postpone  his  contributions  for 
sheer  lack  of  spirit  to  go  on.  Near  the  close  of 
the  year  1862  he  writes :  — 

"I  am  delighted  at  what  you  tell  me  about  the  kind 
appreciation  of  my  articles,  for  I  feel  rather  gloomy  about 
them  myself.  I  am  really  much  encouraged  by  what  you 
say ;  not  but  what  I  am  sensible  that  you  mollify  me  with 


100  HAWTHORNE. 

a  good  deal  of  soft  soap,  but  it  is  skilfully  applied  and 

effects   all  you  intend  it  should I  cannot  come  to 

Boston  to  spend  more  than  a  day,  just  at  present.  It  would 
suit  me  better  to  come  for  a  visit  when  the  spring  of  next 
year  is  a  little  advanced,  and  if  you  renew  your  hospitable 
proposition  then,  I  shall  probably  be  glad  to  accept  it ; 
though  1  have  now  been  a  hermit  so  long,  that  the  thought 
affects  me  somewhat  as  it  would  to  invite  a  lobster  or  a 
crab  to  step  out  of  his  shell." 

He  continued,  during  the  early  months  of  1863, 
to  send  now  and  then  an  article  for  the  magazine 
from  his  English  Note-Books.  On  the  22d  of 
February  he  writes  :  — 

"Here  is  another  article.  I  wish  it  would  not  be  so 
wretchedly  long,  but  there  are  many  things  which  I  shall 
find  no  opportunity  to  say  unless  I  say  them  now ;  so  the 
article  grows  under  my  hand,  and  one  part  of  it  seems  just 
about  as  well  worth  printing  as  another.  Heaven  sees  tit 
to  visit  me  with  an  unshakable  conviction  that  all  this 
series  of  articles  is  good  for  nothing ;  but  that  is  none  of 
my  business,  provided  the  public  and  you  are  of  a  different 
opinion.  If  you  think  any  part  of  it  can  be  left  out  with 
advantage,  you  are  quite  at  liberty  to  do  so.  Probably  I 
have  not  put  Leigh  Hunt  quite  high  enough  for  your  senti 
ments  respecting  him ;  but  no  more  genuine  characteriza 
tion  and  criticism  (so  far  as  the  writer's  purpose  to  be  true 
goes)  was  ever  done.  It  is  very  slight.  I  might  have  made 
more  of  it,  but  should  not  have  improved  it. 

"  I  mean  to  write  two  more  of  these  articles,  and  then 
hold  my  hand.  I  intend  to  come  to  Boston  before  the  end 
of  this  week,  if  the  weather  is  good.  It  must  be  nearly  or 
quite  six  months  since  I  was  there !  I  wonder  how  many 
people  there  are  in  the  world  who  would  keep  their  nerves 
in  tolerably  good  order  through  such  a  length  of  nearly 
solitary  imprisonment  ?  " 


HAWTHORNE.  101 

I  advised  him  to  begin  to  put  the  series  in  order 
for  a  volume,  and  to  preface  the  book  with  his 
"  Consular  Experiences."  On  the  18th  of  April  he 
writes  :  — 

"  I  don't  think  the  public  will  hear  any  more  of  this  sort 

of  thing I  had  a  letter  from ,  the  other  day,  in 

which  he  sends  me  the  enclosed  verses,  and  I  think  he 
would  like  to  have  them  published  in  the  Atlantic.  Do  it 
if  you  like,  I  pretend  to  no  judgment  in  poetry.  He  also 

sent  this  epithalamium  by  Mrs. ,  and  I  doubt  not  the 

good  lady  will  be  pleased  to  see  it  copied  into  one  of  our 
American  newspapers  with  a  few  laudatory  remarks.  Can't 
you  do  it  in  the  Transcript,  and  send  her  a  copy  ?  You 
cannot  imagine  how  a  little  praise  jollifies  us  poor  authors 
to  the  marrow  of  our  bones.  Consider,  if  you  had  not 
been  a  publisher,  you  would  certainly  have  been  one  of  our 
wretched  tribe,  and  therefore  ought  to  have  a  fellow-feel 
ing  for  us.  Let  Michael  Angelo  write  the  remarks,  if  you 
have  not  the  time." 

("  Michael  Angelo  "  was  a  clever  little  Irish-boy 
who  had  the  care  of  my  room.  Hawthorne  con 
ceived  a  fancy  for  the  lad,  and  liked  to  hear  stories 
of  his  smart  replies  to  persistent  authors  who  called 
during  my  absence  with  unpromising-looking  manu 
scripts.)  On  the  30th  of  April  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  send  the  article  with  which  the  volume  is  to  com 
mence,  and  you  can  begin  printing  it  whenever  you  like. 
I  can  think  of  no  better  title  than  this,  'Our  Old  Home;  a 
Series  of  English  Sketches,  by,'  etc.  I  submit  to  your 
judgment  whether  it  would  not  be  well  to  print  these 
'Consular  Experiences'  in  the  volume  without  depriving 
them  of  any  freshness  they  may  have  by  previous  publica 
tion  in  the  magazine  ? 

/f   ^      OF  THE 


102  HAWTHORNE. 

"  The  article  has  some  of  the  features  that  attract  the 
curiosity  of  the  foolish  public,  being  made  up  of  personal 
narrative  and  gossip,  with  a  few  pungencies  of  personal 
satire,  which  will  not  be  the  less  effective  because  the 
reader  can  scarcely  find  out  who  was  the  individual  meant. 
I  am  not  without  hope  of  drawing  down  upon  myself  a 
good  deal  of  critical  severity  on  this  score,  and  would 
gladly  incur  more  of  it  if  I  could  do  so  without  seriously 
deserving  censure. 

"  The  story  of  the  Doctor  of  Divinity,  I  think,  will  prove 
a  good  card  in  this  way.  It  is  every  bit  true  (like  the  other 
anecdotes),  only  not  told  so  darkly  as  it  might  have  been 
for  the  reverend  gentleman.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
danger  of  his  identity  being  ascertained,  and  do  not  care 
whether  it  is  or  no,  as  it  could  only  be  done  by  the  imperti 
nent  researches  of  other  people.  It  seems  to  me  quite 
essential  to  have  some  novelty  in  the  collected  volume,  and, 
if  possible,  something  that  may  excite  a  little  discussion 
and  remark.  But  decide  for  yourself  and  me ;  and  if  you 
conclude  not  to  publish  it  in  the  magazine,  I  think  I  can 
concoct  another  article  in  season  for  the  August  number,  if 
you  wish.  After  the  publication  of  the  volume,  it  seems  to 
me  the  public  had  better  have  no  more  of  them. 

"  J has  been  telling  us  a  mythical  story  of  your  in 
tending  to  walk  with  him  from  Cambridge  to  Concord.  We 
should  be  delighted  to  see  you,  though  more  for  our  own 
sakes  than  yours,  for  our  aspect  here  is  still  a  little  winter- 
ish.  When  you  come,  let  it  be  on  Saturday,  and  stay  till 
Monday.  I  am  hungry  to  talk  with  you." 

I  was  enchanted,  of  course,  with  the  "  Consular 
Experiences,"  and  find  from  his  letters,  written  at 
that  time,  that  he  was  made  specially  happy  hy  the 
encomiums  I  could  not  help  sending  upon  that 
inimitable  sketch.  When  the  "  Old  Home  "  was 
nearly  all  in  type,  he  began  to  think  about  a 


HAWTHORNE.  103 

dedication  to  the   book.      On  the  3d  of  May  he 

writes :  — 

"  I  am  of  three  minds  about  dedicating  the  volume.  First, 
it  seems  due  to  Frank  Pierce  (as  he  put  me  into  the  position 
where  I  made  all  those  profound  observations  of  English 
scenery,  life,  and  character)  to  inscribe  it  to  him  with  a  few 
pages  of  friendly  and  explanatory  talk,  which  also  would  be 
very  gratifying  to  my  own  lifelong  affection  for  him. 

"  Secondly,  I  want  to  say  something  to  Bennoch  to  show 
him  that  I  am  thoroughly  mindful  of  all  his  hospitality  and 
kindness ;  and  I  suppose  he  might  be  pleased  to  see  his 
name  at  the  head  of  a  book  of  mine. 

"  Thirdly,  I  am  not  convinced  that  it  is  worth  while  to  in 
scribe  it  to  anybody.  We  will  see  hereafter." 

The  book  moved  on  slowly  through  the  press,  and 
he  seemed  more  than  commonly  nervous  about  the 
proof-sheets.  On  the  28th  of  May  he  says  in  a 
note  to  me  :  — 

"  In  the  proof-sheet  of  '  Our  Old  Home  '  which  I  sent  you 
to-day  (page  43,  or  4,  or  5  or  thereabout)  I  corrected  a  line 
thus,  '  possessing  a  happy  faculty  of  seeing  my  own  inter 
est.'  Now  as  the  public  interest  was  my  sole  and  individual 
object  while  I  held  office,  I  think  that  as  a  matter  of  scanty 
justice  to  myself,  the  line  ought  to  stand  thus,  '  possessing 
a  happy  faculty  of  seeing  my  own  interest  and  the  public's.' 
Even  then,  you  see,  I  only  give  myself  credit  for  half  the 
disinterestedness  I  really  felt.  Pray,  by  all  means,  have  it 
altered  as  above,  even  if  the  page  is  stereotyped ;  which  it 
can't  have  been,  as  the  proof  is  nowr  in  the  Concord  post- 
office,  and  you  will  have  it  at  the  same  time  with  this. 

"  We  are  getting  into  full  leaf  here,  and  your  walk  with 
J might  come  off  any  time." 


104  HAWTHORNE. 

An  arrangement  was  made  with  the  liberal  house 
of  Smith  and  Elder  of  London,  to  bring  out  "  Our 
Old  Home  "  on  the  same  day  of  its  publication  in 
Boston.  On  the  1st  of  July  Hawthorne  wrote  to 
me  from  the  Wayside  as  follows  :  — 

"  I  am  delighted  with  Smith  and  Elder,  or  rather  with 
you ;  for  it  is  you  that  squeeze  the  English  sovereigns  out 
of  the  poor  devils.  On  my  own  behalf  I  never  could  have 
thought  of  asking  more  than  £50,  and  should  hardly  have 
expected  to  get  £10;  I  look  upon  the  £180  as  the  only 
trustworthy  funds  I  have,  our  own  money  being  of  such  a 
gaseous  consistency.  By  the  time  I  can  draw  for  it,  I  ex 
pect  it  will  be  worth  at  least  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 

"  I  shall  think  over  the  prefatory  matter  for  '  Our  Old 
Home '  to-day,  and  will  wrrite  it  to-morrow.  It  requires 
some  little  thought  and  policy  in  order  to  say  nothing  amiss 
at  this  time ;  for  I  intend  to  dedicate  the  book  to  Frank 
Pierce,  come  what  may.  It  shall  reach  you  on  Friday 
morning. 

"  We  find a  comfortable  and  desirable  guest  to  have 

in  the  house.  My  wife  likes  her  hugely,  and  for  my  part,  I 
had  no  idea  that  there  was  such  a  sensible  woman  of  letters 
in  the  world.  She  is  just  as  healthy-minded  as  if  she  had 
never  touched  a  pen.  I  am  glad  she  had  a  pleasant  time, 
and  hope  she  will  come  back. 

"  I  mean  to  come  to  Boston  whenever  I  can  be  sure  of  a 
cool  day. 

"  What  a  prodigious  length  of  time  you  stayed  among  the 
mountains  ! 

"  You  ought  not  to  assume  such  liberties  of  absence  with 
out  the  consent  of  your  friends,  which  I  hardly  think  you 
would  get.  I,  at  least,  want  you  always  within  attainable 
distance,  even  though  I  never  see  you.  Why  can't  you 
come  and  stay  a  day  or  two  with  us,  and  drink  some  spruce 
beer?" 


HAWTHORNE.  105 

Those  were  troublous  days,  full  of  war  gloom  and 
general  despondency.  The  North  was  naturally 
suspicious  of  all  public  men  who  did  not  bear  a 
conspicuous  part  in  helping  to  put  down  the  Rebel 
lion.  General  Pierce  had  been  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  was  not  identified,  to  say  the 
least,  with  the  great  party  which  favored  the  vig 
orous  prosecution  of  the  war.  Hawthorne  pro 
posed  to  dedicate  his  new  book  to  a  very  dear 
friend,  indeed,  but  in  doing  so  he  would  draw 
public  attention  in  a  marked  way  to  an  unpopular 
name.  Several  of  Hawthorne's  friends,  on  learn 
ing  that  he  intended  to  inscribe  his  book  to  Frank 
lin  Pierce,  came  to  me  and  begged  that  I  would,  if 
possible,  help  Hawthorne  to  see  that  he  ought  not 
to  do  anything  to  jeopardize  the  currency  of  his 
new  volume.  Accordingly  I  wrote  to  him,  just 
what  many  of  his  friends  had  said  to  me,  and  this 
is  his  reply  to  my  letter,  which  bears  date  the  18th 
of  July,  1863  :  — 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  note  of  the  15th  instant,  and  have 
delayed  my  reply  thus  long  in  order  to  ponder  deeply  on 
youi'  advice,  smoke  cigars  over  it,  and  see  what  it  might  be 
possible  for  me  to  do  towards  taking  it.  I  find  that  it  would 
be  a  piece  of  poltroonery  in  me  to  withdraw  either  the  dedi 
cation  or  the  dedicatory  letter.  My  long  and  intimate  per 
sonal  relations  with  Pierce  render  the  dedication  altogether 
proper,  especially  as  regards  this  book,  which  would  have 
had  no  existence  without  his  kindness ;  and  if  he  is  so 
exceedingly  unpopular  that  his  name  is  enough  to  sink  the 
volume,  there  is  so  much  the  more  need  that  an  old  friend 


106  HAWTHORNE. 

should  stand  by  him.  I  cannot,  merely  on  account  of  pecun 
iary  profit  or  literary  reputation,  go  back  from  what  1  have 
deliberately  felt  and  thought  it  rigut  to  do;  and  if  I  were  to 
tear  out  the  dedication,  I  should  never  look  at  the  volume 
again  without  remorse  and  shame.  As  for  the  literary  pub 
lic,  it  must  accept  my  book  precisely  as  I  think  fit  to  give  it, 
or  let  it  alone. 

"  Nevertheless,  I  have  no  fancy  for  making  myself  a 
martyr  when  it  is  honorably  and  conscientiously  possible  to 
avoid  it ;  and  I  always  measure  out  my  heroism  very  accu 
rately  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion,  and  should 
be  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  throw  away  a  bit  of  it  need 
lessly.  So  I  have  looked  over  the  concluding  paragraph  and 
have  amended  it  in  such  a  way  that,  while  doing  what  I 
know  to  be  justice  to  my  friend,  it  contains  not  a  word  that 
ought  to  be  objectionable  to  any  set  of  readers.  If  the  pub 
lic  of  the  North  see  fit  to  ostracize  me  for  this,  I  can  only 
say  that  I  would  gladly  sacrifice  a  thousand  or  two  of  dollars 
rather  than  retain  the  good-will  of  such  a  herd  of  dolts  and 
mean-spirited  scoundrels.  I  enclose  the  rewritten  para 
graph,  and  shall  wish  to  see  a  proof  of  that  and  the  whole 
dedication. 

"  I  had  a  call  from  an  Englishman  yesterday,  and  kept 
him  to  dinner ;  not  the  threatened ,  but  a  Mr. ,  in 
troduced  by .  He  says  he  knows  you,  and  he  seems  to 

be  a  very  good  fellow.  I  have  strong  hopes  that  he  will 

never  come  back  here  again,  for  J took  him  on  a  walk 

of  several  miles,  whereby  they  both  caught  a  most  tremen 
dous  ducking,  and  the  poor  Englishman  was  frightened  half 

to  death  by  the  thunder On  the  other  page  is  the  list 

of  presentation  people,  and  it  amounts  to  twenty-four,  -which 
your  liberality  and  kindness  allow  me.  As  likely  as  not  I 
have  forgotten  two  or  three,  and  I  held  my  pen  suspended 
over  one  or  two  of  the  names,  doubting  whether  they  de 
served  of  me  so  especial  a  favor  as  a  portion  of  my  heart  and 
brain.  I  have  few  friends.  Some  authors,  I  should  think, 
would  require  half  the  edition  for  private  distribution." 


HAWTHORNE.  107 

"  Our  Old  Home  "  was  published  in  the  autumn 
of  1863,  and  although  it  was  everywhere  welcomed, 
in  England  the  strictures  were  applied  with  a 
liberal  hand.  On  the  18th  of  October  he  writes 
to  me  :  — 

"  You  sent  me  the  '  Reader '  with  a  notice  of  the  book, 
and  1  have  received  one  or  two  others,  one  of  them  from 
Bennoch.  The  English  critics  seem  to  think  me  very  bitter 
against  their  countrymen,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  natural  that 
they  should,  because  their  self-conceit  can  accept  nothing 
short  of  indiscriminate  adulation ;  but  I  really  think  that 
Americans  have  more  cause  than  they  to  complain  of  me. 
Looking  over  the  volume,  I  am  rather  surprised  to  find  that 
whenever  I  draw  a  comparison  between  the  two  people,  I 
almost  invariably  cast  the  balance  against  ourselves.  It  is 
not  a  good  nor  a  weighty  book,  nor  does  it  deserve  any  great 
amount  either  of  praise  or  censure.  I  don't  care  about  see 
ing  any  more  notices  of  it." 

Meantime  the  "  Dolliver  Romance,"  which  had 
been  laid  aside  on  account  of  the  exciting  scenes 
through  which  we  were  then  passing,  and  which 
unfitted  him  for  the  composition  of  a  work  of  the 
imagination,  made  little  progress.  In  a  note  written 
to  me  at  this  time  he  says  :  — 

"  I  can't  tell  you  when  to  expect  an  instalment  of  the 
Romance,  if  ever.  There  is  something  preternatural  in  my 
reluctance  to  begin.  I  linger  at  the  threshold,  and  have  a 
perception  of  very  disagreeable  phantasms  to  be  encountered 
if  I  enter.  I  wish  God  had  given  me  the  faculty  of  writing 
a  sunshiny  book." 

I  invited  him  to  come  to  Boston  and  have  a 
cheerftil  week  among  his  old  friends,  and  threw 


108  HAWTHORNE. 

in  as  an  inducement  a  hint  that  he  should  hear  the 
great  organ  in  the  Music  Hall.  I  also  suggested 
that  we  could  talk  over  the  new  Romance  together, 
if  he  would  gladden  us  all  by  coming  to  the  city. 
Instead  of  coming,  he  sent  this  reply  :  — 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  invitation  to  hear  the  grand 
instrument ;  but  it  offers  me  no  inducement  additional  to 
what  I  should  always  have  for  a  visit  to  your  abode.  I 
have  no  ear  for  an  organ  or  a  je\vs-harp,  nor  for  any  instru 
ment  between  the  two ;  so  you  had  better  invite  a  worthier 
guest,  and  I  will  come  another  time. 

"  I  don't  see  much  probability  of  my  having  the  first  chap 
ter  of  the  Romance  ready  so  soon  as  you  want  it.  There  are 
two  or  three  chapters  ready  to  be  written,  but  I  am  not  yet 
robust  enough  to  begin,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  should  never  carry 
it  through. 

"Besides,  I  want  to  prefix  a  little  sketch  of  Thoreau  to  it, 
because,  from  a  tradition  which  he  told  me  about  this  house 
of  mine,  I  got  the  idea  of  a  deathless  man,  which  is  now  tak 
ing  a  shape  very  different  from  the  original  one.  It  seems 
the  duty  of  a  live  literary  man  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of 
a  dead  one,  when  there  is  such  fair  opportunity  as  in  this 
case  •.  but  how  Thoreau  would  scorn  me  for  thinking  that  / 
could  perpetuate  him  !  And  I  don't  think  so. 

"  I  can  think  of  no  title  for  the  unborn  Romance.  Always 
heretofore  I  have  waited  till  it  was  quite  complete  before 
attempting  to  name  it,  and  I  fear  I  shall  have  to  do  so  now. 
I  wish  you  or  Mrs.  Fields  would  suggest  one.  Perhaps  you 
may  snatch  a  title  out  of  the  infinite  void  that  will  mirac 
ulously  suit  the  book,  and  give  me  a  needful  impetus  to 
write  it. 

"  I  want  a  great  deal  of  money I  wonder  how  peo 
ple  manage  to  live  economically.  I  seem  to  spend  little  or 
nothing,  and  yet  it  will  get  very  far  beyond  the  second  thou 
sand,  for  the  present  year If  it  were  not  for  these 


HAWTHORNE.  109 

troublesome  necessities,  I  doubt  whether  you  would  ever 
see  so  much  as  the  first  chapter  of  the  new  Romance. 

"  Those  verses  entitled  '  Weariness,'  in  the  last  magazine, 
seem  to  me  profoundly  touching.  I  too  am  weary,  and  be 
gin  to  look  ahead  for  the  Wayside  Inn." 

I  had  frequent  accounts  of  his  ill  health  and 
changed  appearance,  but  I  supposed  he  would  rally 
again  soon,  and  become  hale  and  strong  before  the 
winter  fairly  set  in.  But  the  shadows  even  then 
were  about  his  pathway,  and  Allan  Cunningham's 
lines,  which  he  once  quoted  to  me,  must  often  have 
occurred  to  him,  -— 

"  Cauld  's  the  snaw  at  my  head, 
And  cauld  at  my  feet, 
And  the  finger  o'  death  's  at  my  een, 
Closing  them  to  sleep." 

We  had  arranged  together  that  the  "  Dolliver 
Romance  "  should  be  first  published  in  the  maga 
zine,  in  monthly  instalments,  and  we  decided  to 
begin  in  the  January  number  of  1864.  On  the 
8th  of  November  came  a  long  letter  from  him  :  — 

"  I  foresee  that  there  is  little  probability  of  my  getting 
the  first  chapter  ready  by  the  15th,  although  I  have  a  reso 
lute  purpose  to  write  it  by  the  end  of  the  month.  It  will 
be  in  time  for  the  February  number,  if  it  turns  out  fit  for 
publication  at  all.  As  to  the  title,  we  must  defer  settling 
that  till  the  book  is  fully  written,  and  meanwhile  I  see 
nothing  better  than  to  call  the  series  of  articles  'Fragments 
of  a  Iloniance.'  This  will  leave  me  to  exercise  greater  free 
dom  as  to  the  mechanism  of  the  story  than  I  otherwise  can, 
and  without  which  I  shall  probably  get  entangled  in  my 


110  HAWTHORNE. 

own  plot.  "When  the  work  is  completed  in  the  magazine,  I 
can  fill  up  the  gaps  and  make  straight  the  crookednesses, 
and  christen  it  with  a  fresh  title.  In  this  untried  experi 
ment  of  a  serial  work  I  desire  not  to  pledge  myself,  or  prom 
ise  the  public  more  than  I  may  confidently  expect  to  achieve. 
As  regards  the  sketch  of  Thoreau,  I  am  not  ready  to  write 
it  yet,  but  will  mix  him  up  with  the  life  of  the  Wayside, 
and  produce  an  autobiographical  preface  for  the  finished 
Romance.  If  the  public  like  that  sort  of  stuff,  I  too  find  it 
pleasant  and  easy  writing,  and  can  supply  a  new  chapter  of 
it  for  every  new  volume,  and  that,  moreover,  without  in 
fringing  upon  my  proper  privacy.  An  old  Quaker  wrote  me, 
the  other  day,  that  he  had  been  reading  my  Introduction  to 
the  '  Mosses  '  and  the  '  Scarlet  Letter,'  and  felt  as  if  he 
knew  me  better  than  his  best  friend ;  but  I  think  he  con 
siderably  overestimates  the  extent  of  his  intimacy  with  me. 

"  I  received  several  private  letters  and  printed  notices  of 
'  Our  Old  Home  '  from  England.  It  is  laughable  to  see  the 
innocent  wonder  with  which  they  regard  my  criticisms,  ac 
counting  for  them  by  jaundice,  insanity,  jealousy,  hatred,  on 
my  part,  and  never  admitting  the  least  suspicion  that  there 
may  be  a  particle  of  truth  in  them.  The  monstrosity  of  their 
self-conceit  is  such  that  anything  short  of  unlimited  admi 
ration  impresses  them  as  malicious  caricature.  But  they 
do  me  great  injustice  in  supposing  that  I  hate  them.  I 
would  as  soon  hate  my  own  people. 

"  Tell  Ticknor  that  I  want  a  hundred  dollars  more,  and  I 
suppose  I  shall  keep  on  wanting  more  and  more  till  the  end 
of  my  days.  If  I  subside  into  the  almshouse  before  my  in 
tellectual  faculties  are  quite  extinguished,  it  strikes  me  that 
I  would  make  a  very  pretty  book  out  of  it ;  and,  seriously, 
if  I  alone  were  concerned,  I  should  not  have  any  great  ob 
jection  to  winding  up  there." 

On  the  14th  of  November  came  a  pleasant  little 
note  from  him,  which  seemed  to  have  been  written 


HAWTHORNE.  Ill 

in  better  spirits  than  he  had  shown  of  late.  Photo 
graphs  of  himself  always  amused  him  greatly,  and 
in  the  little  note  I  refer  to  there  is  this  pleasant 
passage  :  — 

"  Here  is  the  photograph,  —  a  grandfatherly  old  figure 
enough  j  and  I  suppose  that  is  the  reason  why  you  select 
it. 

"  I  am  much  in  want  of  cartes  de  vislte  to  distribute  on 
my  own  account,  and  am  tired  and  disgusted  with  all  the 
undesirable  likenesses  as  yet  presented  of  me.  Don't  you 
think  1  might  sell  my  head  to  some  photographer  who  would 
be  willing  to  return  me  the  value  in  small  change ;  that  is 
to  say,  in  a  dozen  or  two  of  cards  ?  " 

The  first  part  of  Chapter  I.  of  "  The  Dolliver 
Romance  "  came  to  me  from  the  Wayside  on  the 
1st  of  December.  Hawthorne  was  very  anxious  to 
see  it  in  type  as  soon  as  possible,  in  order  that  he 
might  compose  the  rest  in  a  similar  strain,  and  so 
conclude  the  preliminary  phase  of  Dr.  Dolliver. 
He  was  constantly  imploring  me  to  send  him  a 
good  pen,  complaining  all  the  while  that  every 
thing  had  failed  him  in  that  line.  In  one  of  his 
notes  begging  me  to  hunt  him  up  something  that 
he  could  write  with,  he  says  :  — 

"  Nobody  ever  suffered  more  from  pens  than  I  have,  and 
I  am  glad  that  my  labor  with  the  abominable  little  tool  is 
drawing  to  a  close." 

In  the  month  of  December  Hawthorne  attended 
the  funeral  of  Mrs.  Franklin  Pierce,  and,  after  the 


112  HAWTHORNE. 

ceremony,  came  to  stay  with  us.  He  seemed  ill 
and  more  nervous  than  usual.  He  said  he  found 
General  Pierce  greatly  needing  his  companionship, 
for  he  was  overwhelmed  with  grief  at  the  loss  of 
his  wife.  I  well  remember  the  sadness  of  Haw 
thorne's  face  when  he  told  us  he  felt  obliged  to 
look  on  the  dead.  "  It  was,"  said  he,  "  like  a 
carven  image  laid  in  its  richly  embossed  enclosure, 
and  there  was  a  remote  expression  about  it  as  if 
the  whole  had  nothing  to  do  with  things  present." 
He  told  us,  as  an  instance  of  the  ever-constant 
courtesy  of  his  friend  General  Pierce,  that  while 
they  were  standing  at  the  grave,  the  General, 
though  completely  overcome  with  his  own  sorrow, 
turned  and  drew  up  the  collar  of  Hawthorne's  coat 
to  shield  him  from  the  bitter  cold. 

The  same  day,  as  the  sunset  deepened  and  we  sat 
together,  Hawthorne  began  to  talk  in  an  autobio 
graphical  vein,  and  gave  us  the  story  of  his  early 
life,  of  which  I  have  already  written  somewhat. 
He  said  at  an  early  age  he  accompanied  his  mother 
and  sister  to  the  township  in  Maine,  wrhich  his 
grandfather  had  purchased.  That,  he  continued, 
was  the  happiest  period  of  his  life,  and  it  lasted 
through  several  years,  when  he  was  sent  to  school 
in  Salem.  "  I  lived  in  Maine,"  he  said,  "like  a 
bird  of  the  air,  so  perfect  was  the  freedom  I  en 
joyed.  But  it  was  there  I  first  got  my  cursed 
habits  of  solitude."  During  the  moonlight  nights 


HAWTHORNE.  113 

of  winter  lie  would  skate  until  midnight  all  alone 
upon  Sebago  Lake,  with  the  deep  shadows  of  the 
icy  hills  on  either  hand.  When  he  found  himself 
far  away  from  his  home  and  weary  with  the  exer 
tion  of  skating,  he  would  sometimes  take  refuge  in 
a  log-cabin,  where  half  a  tree  would  be  burning 
on  the  broad  hearth.  He  would  sit  in  the  ample 
chimney  and  look  at  the  stars  through  the  great 
aperture  through  which  the  flames  went  roaring 
up.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  "  how  well  I  recall  the  sum 
mer  days  also,  when,  with  my  gun,  I  roamed  at 
will  through  the  woods  of  Maine.  How  sad  mid 
dle  life  looks  to  people  of  erratic  temperaments! 
Everything  is  beautiful  in  youth,  for  all  things  are 
allowed  to  it  then." 

The  early  home  of  the  Hawthornes  in  Maine 
must  have  been  a  lonely  dwelling-place  indeed.  A 
year  ago  (May  12, 1870)  the  old  place  was  visited  by 
one  who  had  a  true  feeling  for  Hawthorne's  genius, 
and  who  thus  graphically  described  the  spot :  — 

"  A  little  way  off  the  main-travelled  road  in  the  town  of 
liaymond  there  stood  an  old  house  which  has  much  in  com 
mon  with  houses  of  its  day,  but  which  is  distinguished  from 
them  by  the  more  evident  marks  of  neglect  and  decay.  Its 
impainted  walls  are  deeply  stained  by  time.  Cornice  and 
window-ledge  and  threshold  are  fast  falling  with  the  weight 
of  years.  The  fences  were  long  since  removed  from  all  the 
enclosures,  the  garden-wall  is  broken  down,  and  the  garden 
itself  is  now  grown  up  to  pines  whose  shadows  fall  dark 
and  heavy  upon  the  old  and  mossy  roof;  fitting  roof-trees 
for  such  a  mansion,  planted  there  by  the  hands  of  Nature 


114*  HAWTHORNE. 

herself,  as  if  she  could  not  realize  that  her  darling  child  was 
ever  to  go  out  from  his  early  home.  The  highway  once 
passed  its  door,  but  the  location  of  the  road  has  been 
changed;  and  now  the  old  house  stands  solitarily  apart 
from  the  busy  world.  Longer  than  I  can  remember,  and  I 
have  never  learned  how  long,  this  house  has  stood  unten- 
anted  and  wholly  unused,  except,  for  a  few  years,  as  a  place 
of  public  worship ;  but,  for  myself,  and  for  all  who  know 
its  earlier  history,  it  will  ever  have  the  deepest  interest,  for 
it  was  the  early  home  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

"  Often  have  I,  when  passing  through  that  town,  turned 
aside  to  study  the  features  of  that  landscape,  and  to  reflect 
upon  the  influence  which  his  surroundings  had  upon  the 
development  of  this  author's  genius.  A  few  rods  to  the 
north  runs  a  little  mill-streani,  its  sloping  bank  once  cov 
ered  with  grass,  now  so  worn  and  washed  by  the  rains  as 
to  show  but  little  except  yellow  sand.  Less  than  half  a  mile 
to  the  west,  this  stream  empties  into  an  arm  of  Sebago 
Lake.  Doubtless,  at  the  time  the  house  was  built,  the  forest 
was  so  much  cut  away  in  that  direction  as  to  bring  into  view 
the  waters  of  the  lake,  for  a  mill  was  built  upon  the  brook 
about  half-way  down  the  valley,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  sup 
pose  that  a  clearing  was  made  from  the  mill  to  the  landing 
upon  the  shore  of  the  pond ;  but  the  pines  have  so  far 
regained  their  old  dominion  as  completely  to  shut  out  the 
whole  prospect  in  that  direction.  Indeed,  the  site  aifords 
but  a  limited  survey,  except  to  the  northwest.  Across  a 
narrow  valley  in  that  direction  lie  open  fields  and  dark  pine- 
covered  slopes.  Beyond  these  rise  long  ranges  of  forest- 
crowned  hills,  while  in  the  far  distance  every  hue  of  rock  and 
tree,  of  field  and  grove,  melts  into  the  soft  blue  of  Mount 
Washington.  The  spot  must  ever  have  had  the  utter  lone 
liness  of  the  pine  forests  upon  the  borders  of  our  northern 
lakes.  The  deep  silence  and  dark  shadows  of  the  old  woods 
must  have  filled  the  imagination  of  a  youth  possessing 
Hawthorne's  sensibility  with  images  which  later  years 
could  not  dispel. 


HAWTHOKNE.  115 

"  To  this  place  came  the  widowed  mother  of  Hawthorne 
in  company  with  her  brother,  an  original  proprietor  and 
one  of  the  early  settlers  of  the  town  of  Raymond.  This 
house  was  built  for  her,  and  here  she  lived  with  her  son  for 
several  years  in  the  most  complete  seclusion.  Perhaps  she 
strove  to  conceal  here  a  grief  which  she  could  not  forget. 
In  what  way,  and  to  what  extent,  the  surroundings  of  his 
boyhood  operated  in  moulding  the  character  and  develop 
ing  the  genius  of  that  gifted  author,  I  leave  to  the  reader 
to  determine.  I  have  tried  simply  to  draw  a  faithful  pic 
ture  of  his  early  home." 

On  the  15th  of  December  Hawthorne  wrote  to 
me :  — 

"  I  have  not  yet  had  courage  to  read  the  Dolliver  proof- 
sheet,  but  will  set  about  it  soon,  though  with  terrible 

reluctance,  such  as  I  never  felt  before I  am  most 

grateful  to  you  for  protecting  me  from  that  visitation  of  the 

elephant  and  his  cub.     If  you  happen  to  see  Mr. of 

L ,  a  young  man  who  was  here  last  summer,  pray  tell 

him  anything  that  your  conscience  will  let  you,  to  induce 
him  to  spare  me  another  visit,  which  I  know  he  intended. 
I  really  am  not  well  and  cannot  be  disturbed  by  strangers 
without  more  suffering  than  it  is  worth  while  to  endure. 

I  thank  Mrs.  F and  yourself  for  your  kind  hospitality, 

past  and  prospective.  I  never  come  to  see  you  without 
feeling  the  better  for  it,  but  I  must  not  test  so  precious  a 
remedy  too  often." 

The  new  year  found  him  incapacitated  from  writ 
ing  much  on  the  Romance.  On  the  17th  of  January, 
1864,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  am  not  quite  up  to  writing  yet,  but  shall  make  an 
effort  as  soon  as  I  see  any  hope  of  success.  You  ought  to 
be  thankful  that  (like  most  other  broken-down  authors)  I 
do  not  pester  you  with  decrepit  pages,  and  insist  upon  your 


116  HAWTHOENE. 

accepting  them  as  full  of  the  old  spirit  and  vigor.  That 
trouble,  perhaps,  still  awaits  you,  after  I  shall  have  reached 
a  further  stage  of  decay.  Seriously,  my  mind  has,  for  the 
present,  lost  its  temper  and  its  fine  edge,  and  I  have  an 
instinct  that  I  had  better  keep  quiet.  Perhaps  I  shall  have 
a  new  spirit  of  vigor,  if  I  wait  quietly  for  it;  perhaps  not." 

The  end  of  February  found  him  in  a  mood  which 
is  best  indicated  in  this  letter,  which  he  addressed 
to  me  on  the  25th  of  the  month  :  — 

"  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  to  the  public  about  this  abor 
tive  Romance,  though  I  know  pretty  well  what  the  case  will 
be.  I  shall  never  finish  it.  Yet  it  is  not  quite  pleasant  for 
an  author  to  announce  himself,  or  to  he  announced,  as  finally 
broken  down  as  to  his  literary  faculty.  It  is  a  pity  that  I 
let  you  put  this  work  in  your  programme  for  the  year,  for 
I  had  always  a  presentiment  that  it  would  fail  us  at  the 
pinch.  Say  to  the  public  what  you  think  best,  and  as 
little  as  possible;  for  example  :  'We  regret  that  Mr.  Haw 
thorne's  Romance,  announced  for  this  magazine  some  months 
ago,  still  lies  upon  the  author's  writing-table;  he  having 
been  interrupted  in  his  labor  upon  it  by  an  impaired  state 
of  health';  or,  'We  are  sorry  to  hear  (but  know  not 
whether  the  public  will  share  our  grief)  that  Mr.  Haw 
thorne  is  out  of  health  and  is  thereby  prevented,  for  the 
present,  from  proceeding  with  another  of  his  promised  (or 
threatened)  Romances,  intended  for  this  magazine ' ;  or, 
'  Mr.  Hawthorne's  brain  is  addled  at  last,  and,  much  to  our 
satisfaction,  he  tells  us  that  he  cannot  possibly  go  on  with 
the  Romance  announced  on  the  cover  of  the  January  maga 
zine.  We  consider  him  finally  shelved,  and  shall  take  early 
occasion  to  bury  him  under  a  heavy  article,  carefully  sum 
ming  up  his  merits  (such  as  they  were)  and  his  demerits, 
what  few  of  them  can  be  touched  upon  in  our  limited 
space';  or,  'We  shall  commence  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Hawthorne's  Romance  as  soon  as  that  gentleman  chooses 


HAWTHORNE.  117 

to  forward  it.  "We  are  quite  at  a  loss  how  to  account  for 
this  delay  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  contract;  especially  as 
he  has  already  been  most  liberally  paid  for  the  first  num 
ber.'  Say  anything  you  like,  in  short,  though  I  really  don't 
believe  that  the  public  will  care  what  you  say  or  whether 
you  say  anything.  If  you  choose,  you  may  publish  the 
first  chapter  as  an  insulated  fragment,  and  charge  me  with 
the  overpayment.  I  cannot  finish  it  unless  a  great  change 
comes  over  me ;  and  if  I  make  too  great  an  effort  to  do  so, 
it  will  be  my  death ;  not  that  I  should  care  much  for  that, 
if  I  could  fight  the  battle  through  and  win  it,  thus  ending 
a  life  of  much  smoulder  and  scanty  fire  in  a  blaze  of  glory. 
But  I  should  smother  myself  in  mud  of  my  own  making. 
I  mean  to  come  to  Boston  soon,  not  for  a  week  but  for  a 
single  day,  and  then  I  can  talk  about  my  sanitary  pros 
pects  more  freely  than  I  choose  to  write.  I  am  not  low- 
spirited,  nor  fanciful,  nor  freakish,  but  look  what  seem  to 
be  realities  in  the  face,  and  am  ready  to  take  whatever  may 
come.  If  I  could  but  go  to  England  now,  I  think  that  the 
sea  voyage  and  the  '  Old  Home '  might  set  me  all  right. 

"  This  letter  is  for  your  own  eye,  and  I  wish  especially 
that  no  echo  of  it  may  come  back  in  your  notes  to  me. 

"  P.  S.  Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  F ,  and  tell 

her  that  one  of  my  choicest  ideal  places  is  her  drawing- 
room,  and  therefore  I  seldom  visit  it." 

On  Monday,  the  28th  of  March,  Hawthorne 
came  to  town  and  made  my  house  his  first  station 
on  a  journey  to  the  South  for  health.  I  was  greatly 
shocked  at  his  invalid  appearance,  and  he  seemed 
quite  deaf.  The  light  in  his  eye  was  beautiful  as 
ever,  but  his  limbs  seemed  shrunken  and  his  usual 
stalwart  vigor  utterly  gone.  He  said  to  me  with  a 
pathetic  voice,  "  Why  does  Nature  treat  us  like 
little  children  !  I  think  we  could  bear  it  all  if  we 


118  HAWTHORNE. 

knew  our  fate ;  at  least  it  would  not  make  much 
difference  to  me  now  what  became  of  me."  Toward 
night  he  brightened  up  a  little,  and  his  delicious 
wit  flashed  out,  at  intervals,  as  of  old ;  but  he  was 
evidently  broken  and  dispirited  about  his  health. 
Looking  out  on  the  bay  that  was  sparkling  in  the 
moonlight,  he  said  he  thought  the  moon  rather  lost 
something  of  its  charm  for  him  as  he  grew  older. 
He  spoke  with  great  delight  of  a  little  story,  called 
"  Pet  Marjorie,"  and  said  he  had  read  it  carefully 
through  twice,  every  word  of  it.  He  had  much 
to  say  about  England,  and  observed,  among  other 
things,  that  "  the  extent  over  which  her  dominions 
are  spread  leads  her  to  fancy  herself  stronger  than 
she  really  is  ;  but  she  is  not  to-day  a  powerful  em 
pire  ;  she  is  much  like  a  squash-vine,  which  runs 
over  a  whole  garden,  but,  if  you  cut  it  at  the  root, 
it  is  at  once  destroyed."  At  breakfast,  next  morn 
ing,  he  spoke  of  his  kind  neighbors  in  Concord,  and 
said  Alcott  was  one  of  the  most  excellent  men  he 
had  ever  known.  "  It  is  impossible  to  quarrel  with 
him,  for  he  would  take  all  your  harsh  words  like  a 
saint." 

He  left  us  shortly  after  this  for  a  journey  to 
Washington,  with  his  friend  Mr.  Ticknor.  The  trav 
ellers  spent  several  days  in  New  York,  and  then 
proceeded  to  Philadelphia.  Hawthorne  wrote  to 
me  from  the  Continental  Hotel,  dating  his  letter 
"  Satuwlay  evening,"  announcing  the  severe  illness 


HAWTHORNE.  119 

of  his  companion.  He  did  not  seem  to  anticipate 
a  fatal  result,  but  on  Sunday  morning  the  news 
came  that  Mr.  Ticknor  was  dead.  Hawthorne  re 
turned  at  once  to  Boston,  and  stayed  here  over 
night.  He  was  in  a  very  excited  and  nervous  state, 
and  talked  incessantly  of  the  sad  scenes  he  had  just 
been  passing  through.  We  sat  late  together,  con 
versing  of  the  friend  we  had  lost,  and  I  am  sure  he 
hardly  closed  his  eyes  that  night.  In  the  morning 
he  went  back  to  his  own  home  in  Concord. 

His  health,  from  that  time,  seemed  to  give  way 
rapidly,  and  in  the  middle  of  May  his  friend,  Gen 
eral  Pierce,  proposed  that  they  should  go  among 
the  New  Hampshire  hills  together  and  meet  the 
spring  there. 

The  first  letter  we  received  from  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  *  after  her  husband's  return  to  Concord  in 


*  As  I  write  this  paragraph,  my  friend,  the  Reverend 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  puts  into  my  hand  the  following 
note,  which  Hawthorne  sent  to  him  nearly  thirty  years 
ago :  — 

64  PINCKNEY  STREET,  Friday,  July  8,  1842. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Though  personally  a  stranger  to  you,  I 
am  about  to  request  of  you  the  greatest  favor  which  I  can 
receive  from  any  man.  "I  am  to  be  married  to  Miss  Sophia 
Peabody  ;  and  it  is  our  mutual  desire  that  you  should  per 
form  the  ceremony.  Unless  it  should  be  decidedly  a  rainy 
day,  a  carriage  will  call  for  you  at  half  past  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  forenoon. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

NATH.  HAWTHORNE. 

REV.  JAMES  F.  CLARKE,  Chestnut  Street. 


120  HAWTHORNE. 

April  gave  us  great  anxiety.  It  was  dated  "  Mon 
day  eve,"  and  here  are  some  extracts  from  it :  — 

"  I  have  just  sent  Mr.  Hawthorne  to  bed,  and  so  have  a 
moment  to  speak  to  you.  Generally  it  has  been  late  and  I 
have  not  liked  to  disturb  him  by  sitting  up  after  him,  and 
so  I  could  not  write  since  he  returned,  though  I  wished 
very  much  to  tell  you  about  him,«ever  since  he  came  home. 
He  came  back  unlocked  for  that  day ;  and  when  I  heard  a 
step  on  the  piazza,  I  was  lying  on  a  couch  and  feeling  quite 
indisposed.  But  as  soon  as  I  saw  him  I  was  frightened  out 
of  all  knowledge  of  myself,  —  so  haggard,  so  white,  so  deeply 
scored  with  pain  and  fatigue  was  the  face,  so  much  more 
ill  he  looked  than  I  ever  saw  him  before.  He  had  walked 
from  the  station  because  he  saw  no  carriage  there,  and  his 
brow  was  streaming  with  a  perfect  rain,  so  great  had  been 

the  effort  to  walk  so  far He  needed  much  to  get 

home  to  me,  where  he  could  fling  off  all  care  of  himself  and 
give  way  to  his  feelings,  pent  up  and  kept  back  for  so  long, 
especially  since  his  watch  and  ward  of  most  excellent,  kind 
Mr.  Ticknor.  It  relieved  him  somewhat  to  break  down  as 

he  spoke  of  that  scene But  he  was  so  weak  and  weary 

he  could  not  sit  up  much,  and  lay  on  the  couch  nearly  all 
the  time  in  a  kind  of  uneasy  somnolency,  not  wishing  to  be 
read  to  even,  not  able  to  attend  or  fix  his  thoughts  at  all. 
On  Saturday  he  unfortunately  took  cold,  and,  after  a  most 
restless  night,  was  seized  early  in  the  morning  with  a  very 
bad  stiff  neck,  which  was  acutely  painful  all  Sunday.  Sun 
day  night,  however,  a  compress  of  linen  wrung  in  cold  water 
cured  him,  with  belladonna.  But  he  slept  also  most  of  this 

morning He  could  as  easily  build  London  as  go  to 

the  Shakespeare  dinner.  It  tires  him  so  much  to  get  en 
tirely  through  his  toilet  in  the  morning,  that  he  has  to  lie 
down  a  long  time  after  it.  To-day  he  walked  out  on  the 
grounds,  and  could  not  stay  ten  minutes,  because  I  would 
not  let  him  sit  down  in  the  wind,  and  he  could  not  bear  any 
longer  exercise.  He  has  more  than  lost  all  he  gained  by 


HAWTHORNE.  121 

the  journey,  by  the  sad  event.  From  being  the  nursed  and 
cared  for,  —  early  to  bed  and  late  to  rise,  —  led,  as  it  were, 
by  the  ever-ready  hand  of  kind  Mr.  Ticknor,  to  become  the 
nurse  and  night-watcher  with  all  the  responsibilities,  with 
his  mighty  power  of  sympathy  and  his  vast  apprehension  of 
suffering  in  others,  and  to  see  death  for  the  first  time  in  a 
state  so  weak  as  his,  —  the  death  also  of  so  valued  a  friend, 
—  as  Mr.  Hawthorne  says  himself,  'it  told  upon  him  '  fear 
fully.  There  are  lines  ploughed  on  his  brow  which  never 

were  there  before I  have  been  up  and  alert  ever 

since  his  return,  but  one  day  I  was  obliged,  when  he  was 
busy,  to  run  off  and  lie  down  for  fear  I  should  drop  before 
his  eyes.  My  head  was  in  such  an  agony  I  could  not  endure 
it  another  moment.  But  I  am  well  now.  I  have  wrestled 
and  won,  and  now  I  think  I  shall  not  fail  again.  Your  most 
generous  kindness  of  hospitality  I  heartily  thank  you  for, 
but  Mr.  Hawthorne  says  he  cannot  leave  home.  He  wants 
rest,  and  he  says  when  the  wind  is  warm  he  shall  feel  well. 
This  cold  wind  ruins  him.  I  wish  he  were  in  Cuba  or  on 
some  isle  in  the  Gulf  Stream.  But  I  must  say  I  could  not 
think  him  able  to  go  anywhere,  unless  I  could  go  with  him. 
He  is  too  weak  to  take  care  of  himself.  I  do  not  like  to 
have  him  go  up  and  down  stairs  alone.  I  have  read  to  him 
all  the  afternoon  and  evening  and  after  he  walked  in  the 
morning  to-day.  I  do  nothing  but  sit  with  him,  ready  to 
do  or  not  to  do,  just  as  he  wishes.  The  wheels  of  my  small 
menage  are  all  stopped.  He  is  my  world  and  all  the  busi 
ness  of  it.  He  has  not  smiled  since  he  came  home  till  to 
day,  and  I  made  him  laugh  with  Thackeray's  humor  in  read 
ing  to  him  ;  but  a  smile  looks  strange  on  a  face  that  once 
shone  like  a  thousand  suns  with  smiles.  The  light  for  the 
time  has  gone  out  of  his  eyes,  entirely.  An  infinite  weari 
ness  films  them  quite.  I  thank  Heaven  that  summer  and 
not  winter  approaches." 

On  Friday  evening  of  the  same  week  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  sent  off  another  despatch  to  us  :  — 


122  HAWTHORNE. 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  been  miserably  ill  for  two  or  three 
days,  so  that  I  could  not  find  a  moment  to  speak  to  you.  I 
am  most  anxious  to  have  him  leave  Concord  again,  and  Gen 
eral  Pierce's  plan  is  admirable,  now  that  the  General  is  well 
himself.  I  think  the  serene  jog-trot  in  a  private  carriage 
into  country  places,  by  trout-streams  and  to  old  farm-houses, 
away  from  care  and  news,  will  be  very  restorative.  The 
boy  associations  with  the  General  will  refresh  him.  They 
will  fish,  and  muse,  and  rest,  and  saunter  upon  horses'  feet, 
and  be  in  the  air  all  the  time  in  fine  weather.  I  am  quite 
content,  though  I  wish  I  could  go  for  a  few  petits  sions. 
But  General  Pierce  has  been  a  most  tender,  constant  nurse 
for  many  years,  and  knows  how  to  take  care  of  the  sick. 
And  his  love  for  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  the  strongest  passion  of 
his  soul,  now  his  wife  is  departed.  They  will  go  to  the 
Isles  of  Sboals  together  probably,  before  their  return. 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  cannot  walk  ten  minutes  now  without 
wishing  to  sit  down,  as  I  think  I  told  you,  so  that  he  cannot 
take  sufficient  air  except  in  a  carriage.  And  his  horror  of 
hotels  and  rail-cars  is  immense,  and  human  beings  beset 
him  in  cities.  He  is  indeed  very  weak.  I  hardly  know 
what  takes  away  his  strength.  I  now  am  obliged  to  super 
intend  my  workman,  who  is  arranging  the  grounds.  When 
ever  my  husband  lies  down  (which  is  sadly  often)  I  rush 
out  of  doors  to  see  what  the  gardener  is  about. 

"  I  cannot  feel  rested  till  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  better,  but  I 
get  along.  I  shall  go  to  town  when  he  is  safe  in  the  care  of 
General  Pierce." 

On  Saturday  this  communication  from  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  reached  us  :  — 

"  General  Pierce  wrote  yesterday  to  say  he  wished  to 
meet  Mr.  Hawthorne  in  Boston  on  Wednesday,  and  go  from 
thence  on  their  way. 

"  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  much  weaker,  I  find,  than  he  has 
been  before  at  any  time,  and  I  shall  go  down  with  him, 


HAWTHOENE.  123 

having  a  great  many  things  to  do  in  Boston ;  hut  I  am  sure 
he  is  not  n't  to  be  left  by  himself,  for  his  steps  are  so  un 
certain,  and  his  eyes  are  very  uncertain  too.  Dear  Mr. 
Fields,  I  am  very  anxious  about  him,  and  I  write  now  to 
say  that  he  absolutely  refuses  to  see  a  physician  officially, 
and  so  I  wish  to  know  whether  Dr.  Holmes  could  not  see 
him  in  some  ingenious  way  on  Wednesday  as  a  friend ;  but 
with  his  experienced,  acute  observation,  to  look  at  him 
also  as  a  physician,  to  note  how  he  is  and  what  he  judges 
of  him  comparatively  since  he  last  saw  him.  It  almost 
deprives  me  of  my  wits  to  see  him  growing  weaker  with 
no  aid.  He  seems  quite  bilious,  and  has  a  restlessness  that 
is  infinite.  His  look  is  more  distressed  and  harassed  than 
before;  and  he  has  so  little  rest,  that  he  13  getting  worn 
out.  I  hope  immensely  in  regard  of  this  Sauntering  jour 
ney  with  General  Pierce. 

"  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  not  to  speak  to  you  of  anything 
when  you  are  so  busy  and  weary  and  bereaved.  But  yet 
in  such  a  sad  emergency  as  this,  I  am  sure  your  generous, 
kind  heart  will  not  refuse  me  any  help  you  can  render. 
....  I  wish  Dr.  Holmes  would  feel  his  pulse;  I  do  not 
know  how  to  judge  of  it,  but  it  seems  to  me  irregular." 

His  friend,  Dr.  0.  W.  Holmes,  in  compliance 
with  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  desire,  expressed  in  this 
letter  to  me,  saw  the  invalid,  and  thus  describes 
his  appearance  in  an  article  full  of  tenderness  and 
feeling  which  was  published  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly  "  for  July,  1864  :  — 

"  Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  he  left  Boston 
on  his  last  journey  I  called  upon  him  at  the  hotel  where 
he  was  staying.  He  had  gone  out  but  a  moment  before. 
Looking  along  the  street,  I  saw  a  form  at  some  distance  in 
advance  which  could  only  be  his,  —  but  how  changed  from 


124  HAWTHORNE. 

his  former  port  and  figure !  There  was  no  mistaking  the 
long  iron-gray  locks,  the  carriage  of  the  head,  and  the 
general  look  of  the  natural  outlines  and  movement ;  but  he 
seemed  to  have  shrunken  in  all  his  dimensions,  and  faltered 
along  with  an  uncertain,  feeble  step,  as  if  every  movement 
were  an  effort.  I  joined  him,  and  we  walked  together  half 
an  hour,  during  which  time  I  learned  so  much  of  his  state 
of  mind  and  body  as  could  be  got  at  without  worrying  him 
with  suggestive  questions,  —  my  object  being  to  form  an 
opinion  of  his  condition,  as  I  had  been  requested  to  do,  and 
to  give  him  some  hints  that  might  be  useful  to  him  on  hia 
journey. 

"  His  aspect,  medically  considered,  was  very  unfavorable. 
There  were  persistent  local  symptoms,  referred  especially 
to  the  stomach,  — '  boring  pain,'  distension,  difficult  diges. 
tion,  with  great  wasting  of  flesh  and  strength.  He  was 
very  gentle,  very  willing  to  answer  questions,  very  docile 
to  such  counsel  as  I  offered  him,  but  evidently  had  no  hope 
of  recovering  his  health.  He  spoke  as  if  his  work  were 
done,  and  he  should  write  no  more. 

"With  all  his  obvious  depression,  there  was  no  failing 
noticeable  in  his  conversational  powers.  There  was  the 
same  backwardness  and  hesitancy  which  in  his  best  days 
it  was  hard  for  him  to  overcome,  so  that  talking  with  him 
was  almost  like  love-making,  and  his  shy,  beautiful  soul 
had  to  be  wooed  from  its  bashful  prudency  like  an  un 
schooled  maiden.  The  cairn  despondency  with  which  he 
spoke  about  himself  confirmed  the  unfavorable  opinion  sug 
gested  by  his  look  and  history." 

I  saw  Hawthorne  alive,  for  the  last  time,  the  day 
he  started  on  this  his  last  mortal  journey.  His 
speech  and  his  gait  indicated  severe  illness,  and  I 
had  great  misgivings  about  the  jaunt  he  was  pro 
posing  to  take  so  early  in  the  season.  His  tones 


HAWTHORNE.  125 

were  more  subdued  than  ever,  and  he  scarcely  spoke 
above  a  whisper.  He  was  very  affectionate  in  part 
ing,  and  I  followed  him  to  the  door,  looking  after 
him  as  he  went  up  School  Street.  I  noticed  that 
he  faltered  from  weakness,  and  I  should  have  taken 
my  hat  and  joined  him  to  offer  my  arm,  but  I  knew 
he  did  not  wish  to  seem  ill,  and  I  feared  he  might 
be  troubled  at  my  anxiety.  Fearing  to  disturb 
him,  I  followed  him  with  my  eyes  only,  and 
watched  him  till  he  turned  the  corner  and  passed 
out  of  sight. 

On  the  morning  of  the  19th  of  May,  1864,  a 
telegram,  signed  by  Franklin  Pierce,  stunned  us 
all.  It  announced  the  death  of  Hawthorne.  In 
the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  came  this  letter  to 
me :  — 

"PEMIGEWASSET  HOUSE,  PLYMOUTH,  N.  H., 
Thursday  morning,  5  o'clock. 

"My  DEAR  SIR, —  The  telegraph  has  communicated  to 
you  the  fact  of  our  dear  friend  Hawthorne's  death.  My 
friend  Colonel  Hibbard,  who  bears  this  note,  was  a  friend 
of  H ,  and  will  tell  you  more  than  I  am  able  to  write. 

"  I  enclose  herewith  a  note  which  I  commenced  last 
evening  to  dear  Mrs.  Hawthorne.  0,  how  will  she  bear 
this  shock  !  Dear  mother  —  dear  children  — 

"  When  I  met  Hawthorne  in  Boston  a  week  ago,  it  was 
apparent  that  he  was  much  more  feeble  and  more  seriously 
diseased  than  I  had  supposed  him  to  be.  We  came  from 
Centre  Harbor  yesterday  afternoon,  and  I  thought  he  was 
on  the  whole  brighter  than  he  was  the  day  before.  Through 
the  week  he  had  been  inclined  to  somnolency  during  the 
day,  but  restless  at  night.  He  retired  last  night  soon  after 


126  HAWTHOENE. 

nine  o'clock,  and  soon  fell  into  a  quiet  slumber.  In  less 
than  half  an  hour  changed  his  position,  but  continued  to 
sleep.  I  left  the  door  open  between  his  bedroom  and  mine, 
—  our  beds  being  opposite  to  each  other,  —  and  was  asleep 
myself  before  eleven  o'clock.  The  light  continued  to  burn 

in  my  room.     At  two  o'clock,  I  went  to  H 's  bedside ; 

he  was  apparently  in  a  sound  sleep,  and  1  did  not  place  my 
hand  upon  him.  At  four  o'clock  I  went  into  his  room 
again,  and,  as  his  position  was  unchanged,  I  placed  my 
hand  upon  him  and  found  that  life  was  extinct.  I  sent, 
however,  immediately  for  a  physician,  and  called  Judge 
Bell  and  Colonel  Hibbard,  who  occupied  rooms  upon  the 
same  floor  and  near  me.  He  lies  upon  his  side,  his  position 
so  perfectly  natural  and  easy,  his  eyes  closed,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  realize,  while  looking  upon  his  noble  face,  that 
this  is  death.  He  must  have  passed  from  natural  slumber 
to  that  from  which  there  is  no  waking  without  the  slightest 
movement. 

"  I  cannot  write  to  dear  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  and  you  must 
exercise  your  judgment  with  regard  to  sending  this  and  the 
unfinished  note,  enclosed,  to  her. 
"Your  friend, 

"FRANKLIN  PIERCE." 

i 

Hawthorne's  lifelong  desire  that  the  end  might 
he  a  sudden  one  was  gratified.  Often  and  often  he 
has  said  to  me,  "  What  a  blessing  to  go  quickly  !  " 
So  the  same  swift  angel  that  came  as  a  messenger 
to  Allston,  Irving,  Prescott,  Macaulay,  Thackeray, 
and  Dickens  was  commissioned  to  touch  his  fore 
head,  also,  and  beckon  him  away. 

The  room  in  which  death  fell  upon  him, 

"  Like  a  shadow  thrown 
Softly  and  lightly  from  a  passing  cloud," 


HAWTHOKNE.  127 

looks  toward  the  east ;  and  standing  in  it,  as  I  have 
frequently  done,  since  he  passed  out  silently  into 
the  skies,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  scene  on  that 
spring  morning  which  President  Pierce  so  feelingly 
describes  in  his  letter. 

On  the  24th  of  May  we  carried  Hawthorne 
through  the  blossoming  orchards  of  Concord,  and 
laid  him  down  under  a  group  of  pines,  on  a  hill 
side,  overlooking  historic  fields.  All  the  way  from 
the  village  church  to  the  grave  the  birds  kept  up 
a  perpetual  melody.  The  sun  shone  brightly,  and 
the  air  was  sweet  and  pleasant,  as  if  death  had 
never  entered  the  world.  Longfellow  and  Emer 
son,  Channing  and  Hoar,  Agassiz  and  Lowell, 
Greene  and  Whipple,  Alcott  and  Clarke,  Holmes 
and  Hillard,  and  other  friends  whom  he  loved, 
walked  slowly  by  his  side  that  beautiful  spring 
morning.  The  companion  of  his  youth  and  his 
manhood,  for  whom  he  would  willingly,  at  any  time, 
have  given  up  his  own  life,  Franklin  Pierce,  was 
there  among  the  rest,  and  scattered  flowers  into  the 
grave.  The  unfinished  Romance,  which  had  cost 
him  so  much  anxiety,  the  last  literary  work  on 
which  he  had  ever  been  engaged,  was  laid  on  his 
coffin. 

"  Ah  !  wlio  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power, 

And  the  lost  clew  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 
Unfinished  must  remain.." 


128 


HAWTHORNE. 


Longfellow's  beautiful  poem  will  always  be  asso 
ciated  with  the  memory  of  Hawthorne,  and  most 
fitting  was  it  that  his  fellow-student,  whom  he  so 
loved  and  honored,  should  sing  his  requiem. 


/^^ 

/  OF  THE 

{    UNIVERSITY 

V  OF 

Xj^UFor 


Cambridge  :  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


Illustrated   Library  Edition. 

Comprising  all  but  the  three  Juvenile  Books,  in  Nine  Vol 
umes.    Price,  cloth,  $  2.00  each.    The  set,  half  calf,  $  36.00. 


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JAMES    R.  OSGOOD   &   CO., 

PUBLISHERS,  BOSTON 


YESTERDAYS  WITH   AUTHORS, 

BY  JAMES   T.   FIELDS. 

1  voL  -12mo.    $2.00. 


Contents  : 

INTRODUCTORY.  —  THACKERAY.  —  HAWTHORNE. 
—  DICKENS.  —WORDSWORTH.  — 
MISS   MITFORD. 


"Mr.  Fields  has  certainly  met  with  signal  success  in  the  compo- 

,a  of  an  entertaining'  volume.     It  offers  a  rare   charm  to  the 

!    lovers  of  literary  anecdote,  —  a  class  which  probably  includes  the 

Vie  of  its  readers,  —  and  in  many  considerable  portions  possesses 

j    an  interest  no  less  enticing  than  the  naive  recitals  of  Boswell  or  the 

I    pleasant  recollections  of  Crabb  Robinson."  —  New  York  Tribune. 


"The  world  owes*  Mr.  Fields  many  thanks  for  his  '  Yesterda 
i    with   Authors,'  —  a  ^volume  full  of  reminiscences,  anecdotes, 

rs  of  some  of  thi  writers  whom  Mr.  Fields  has  known.    "* 
j    eray,  Hawthorne,  Dickens,  and  Miss  Mitford  are  the  chief 
i    ages  described,  and  what  is  said  of  them  all,  is  fresh  and 
The  paper  on  Wordsworth  gives  some  of  his  traits  as 
any  description  we  have  ever  seen,  and  the  whole  book 
Spr ing  field  R ep u blica n . 

"This  work  is  far  better  than  Crabb  Robinson's  d 
*    the  fault  of  which  was  that,  'being  chiefly  a  Diar 

of  erainenj   people  ^whereas  Mr.  F' 
r.ot  elaborated;   but  $pisJke'4,  graceful,  and  i 
|    Much  of  what  he  tefl$  us'is  the  result  of  pers 
j    observation,  and   for*  the  rest  he  h 
j    reminiscences  to  speak  for  themselves  in 
j    is  particularly  the  case  with  Dickens,  fr 
I    set  of  epistle^, v- one  to    Mr.  Fields  a 

I    fessor  Fcltoti,—  and  in  that  of  Miss  ifejw  .,  ~~  ^-^  ,-^ 

\    is  equal  in  sprrifand  easv  grace  toAfl  /  *<  II  *J 

\    Madame  de  Sevigne."  —  Philadj^l  \     /  V  ^ 

"  The  volume  is  full 
j    thors."  — . 


